


Tales from Pete's World 7 - Fly on the Wall

by SciFiFanForever



Series: Tales from Pete's World [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:59:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 47,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SciFiFanForever/pseuds/SciFiFanForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another day-in-the-life-of story of the Metacrisis Doctor, John Smith, and his wife, Rose, along with their family and friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An internet sensation!

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching those police documentaries, where they give them cameras and follow then around, and thought that would be great if it was Torchwood. Then I realised that they did a little 'bio' of each officer, and realised that all of the stories in Pete's World contain their colleagues and friends, and we know nothing about them. Time to rectify that oversight... I hope you enjoy it.

** **

** Chapter 1 **

 

 

Angel, the alien who had no surname, carried her boots, as she walked along the pebble and sand beach, in front of the white, chalk cliffs, with her friend, Andre Coultarde. It had been two years ago that Dr. John Smith and his wife, Rose, had rescued her from a police cell and taken her to the Torchwood Hospital.

 

She had been abandoned on Earth, and as such was granted refugee status and asylum by the government of the Republic of Great Britain. Torchwood gave her a home and a job as a child care assistant in the child care centre on the first floor of Torchwood Tower at the Isle of Dogs.

 

She had human features, but her skin was marble white, with pixie like pointed ears, piercing blue eyes, and grey lips. Her wavy, shoulder length hair was silvery white. To help her integrate into society, the ‘Blue Watch Babes’, as Rose, Julia and Gwen were nicknamed, introduced her to a tanning salon where she got a gentle shade of tan, and taught her how to apply lipstick and eyeliner.

 

Andre, who was Swiss, and knew what it felt like to be a foreigner in a foreign land, befriended her, and made it his mission to show her a good time, and how metropolitan the city of London really was. Unlike Angel, he knew where his home Geneva was, and knew he could return anytime he liked. However, he’d fallen in love with London, and loved his job as a Special Operations Field Agent.

 

It was only last week, when Angel was in the restaurant with the ‘Blue Watch Babes’, that she told him that she had never seen the sea, and so he arranged that at the weekend, they would go to Dover, and she could look out over the English Channel from the top of the cliffs.

 

She had never seen so much water, and they had made their way down to the beach so that she could paddle in the waves. Andre smiled at her child like appreciation of the simple pleasure of feeling the cold water wash over her feet. She hung on his arm, and cuddled up against his shoulder.

 

“This is being wonderful,” she said in her strange way of speaking. She was learning to speak English without having to rely on a translator, and it gave her a cute, if not quirky turn of phrase.

 

“It iz wonderful, are you glad you came?” Andre said, smiling at her.

 

She smiled back. “Yes, your words are truthful. When I am appearing like everyone else, no one is noticing that I am different.” She was still a little apprehensive about being seen out and about, although no one had been nasty to her, the unsolicited looks and whispering were still unnerving.

 

“People on ze planet are getting used to ze idea of aliens, zey…” His conversation was cut short by a scream and calls for help from the top of the cliffs. They looked up, and saw a woman with her hands to her face, screaming in horror. A man was lying on his front, leaning over the edge of the cliff, trying to reach down to… a child.

 

Andre reached into his jacket pocket for his mobile, he had Torchwood on speed dial, and they would respond faster than any treble nine call. Angel, on the other hand, took off her jacket and stripped to the waist without any thought to her modesty. She unfurled her bat-like wings and leapt into the air, powering her wings as hard as she could to reach the toddler, who was precariously clinging on to the side of the cliff.

 

Within seconds she had reached the child and just before he lost his grip and fell, she hugged him around his chest and waist. It was then that she had a sudden realisation; she had never flown whilst carrying a load, and realised that she wouldn’t be able to reach the cliff top. She looked down over her shoulder, and kicked away from the cliff face, trying to control her glide back to the beach.

 

She was coming in fast, and she would land hard, and although the sand would break some of her fall, the pebbles would hurt. At the last moment, she tucked in her wings, and pitched to the side, protecting the child from the impact. She hit the ground with a thud, skidded across the pebbles and sand, and lay still.

 

“ANGEL!” Andre yelled as he ran towards her and knelt down.

 

“Torchwood Special Operations Unit,” a voice said on his mobile.

 

“Andre Coultarde, agent Blue Zero Six. I ‘ave two casualties from a cliff fall; I need immediate Med-Evac.”

 

“Okay Andre, I’m triangulating your phone signal, stay on the line, the airship will be in the air within minutes. What are the casualties' injuries?”

 

He put the phone on the sand, and started to examine Angel. “Angel, can you ‘ear me, are you alright?”

 

She groaned, and tried to turn her head to look at him. “Andre, the child, how is the child, is he injured?”

 

“Don’t move Sweetheart, I’ll check,” he said, although he knew the boy would be fine as he was crying and asking for his mummy.

 

“'Ello,” he said with a kind smile, gently untangling him from Angel’s grip. “I’m Andre, zis iz Angel…, what iz your name?”

 

“S, Stephen…, I want my Mummy,” he cried.

 

Andre looked up and saw the parents running along the cliff top to the path that led down to the beach. “She’s coming Stephen. Are you injured?”

 

“I banged my knee when I fell,” he cried.

 

“'elp iz on ze way, be a brave boy.” He turned his attention to Angel, and started to check her spine for injuries. He carefully held her chin still, and started to feel down her spine, gently rubbing with his thumb to find any tender areas.

 

“Tell me if you feel any pain when I rub your spine.”

 

“My back is free from injury, I landed on my side to protect the boy,” she told him.

 

“Okay, I’m going to check your ribs.” He followed the line of her ribs down towards the sand, and gently reached underneath her.

 

“Aagh,” she cried out.

 

“I cannot feel any fractures.”

 

“No, it’s my skin, it is grazed and burnt by friction, I landed heavily on my right arm and wing, I think they may be broken,” she sobbed.

 

He gently stroked her silver hair away from her face, and tucked it behind her cute, pixie ear, rubbing away a tear with his thumb. He heard people running towards them, and quickly took off his jacket to cover her naked torso. There were holidaymakers and sightseers with camcorders and camera phones, recording the extraordinary scene before them.

 

This made Andre angry. “Please, she iz injured, she does not need you taking photos; she needs ‘elp.”

 

“STEPHEN! STEPHEN!” a woman shouted as she tried to run over the sand. She dropped to her knees and enveloped the crying child in a hug. The father knelt beside them and grabbed them both into a group hug.

 

“Oh God, I thought we’d lost you,” she cried. “I thought we’d lost you.”

 

She looked at the injured alien lying in front of her. “I don’t know who or what you are…, but thank you. God bless you for what you did.”

 

“Grateful am I for being here to intervene,” Angel rasped.

 

“Oh no, you’re injured!” the mother gasped. “Is she going to be alright…? She’s not going to die is she…? I mean, it was a hell of a fall,” she said, looking at Andre.

 

He was holding her hand, and gently stroking her hair.

 

“She ‘az grazes and contusions, maybe a fracture, but she will live, and ‘elp iz on ze way.”

 

As if on cue, they heard the drone of the airship as it appeared from above the cliffs, and watched as it circled around and descended to the beach.

 

“‘Elp iz ‘ere Angel… Zis is not ‘ow I thought zis weekend would go,” he said hesitantly.

 

She smiled weakly at him. “How is it you are meaning?”

“I waz ‘oping that you might want to spend ze night in a ‘otel…, you know…, wiz me.”

 

“Is this for what Rose told me about, when you practice making babies?”

 

Andre blushed and stuttered. “Er, ah, well…”

 

She reached up with her left hand and stroked his cheek. “That I would like very much with you. Can we come back when I am repaired?”

 

Dr. John Smith and Dr. Marla Jones, jumped down from the airship, and ran towards the casualties.

 

“John, can you check on the boy, while I check Angel?” Marla said, as she opened her field medical kit.

 

John knelt down in front of the family, and took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. “Hello, I’m John, and this is my special scanner. What’s your name then?” he said to the child in a cheerful voice.

 

“His name’s Stephen,” the father told him.

 

“Okay Stephen, this won’t hurt.” He started scanning with the whistling, warbling sonic. “What happened then?” he asked casually as he scanned for fractures or internal damage.

 

“We only looked away for a second, and he was gone,” the mother said, still upset by the thought that he could have fallen to his death.

 

“Tell me about it,” John said with a smile. “I’ve got three of the little blighters, and they seem hell bent on trying to give us heart attacks. No matter how much you tell them no, they won’t rest until they’ve tried something and realised that it’ll kill them.”

 

“Wait a minute, you’re that famous scientist aren’t you?” the mother said. “The one that used to be in the magazines.”

 

“Yep, that’s me…, ‘used to be’ being the favoured term, they tend to leave us alone now so that we can get on with our lives.” He finished the scan and looked at the results. “A nasty cut and bruise on his knee…, I’ll get some spray that’ll clean and numb it.”

 

He went over to Marla to get an aerosol can from the medical kit. “Hi Angel, how’re you doing?”

 

“Better days I have had, thank you for asking.”

 

“Fortunately, I think the soft sand cushioned her fall, she has torn her rotator cuff and bruised some tendons. She is going to be sore for a few weeks, but she’ll be okay,” Marla said.

 

John grabbed the spray can and went back to his patient. “Now Stephen, this is a battlefield spray used by soldiers, do you think you can be a soldier so that I can use it on you?”

 

“uh-huh,” he said, looking at his parents for reassurance.

 

John sprayed the liquid dressing on the cut and bruised knee, and it formed a plastic skin over the wound.

 

“There we go soldier, good as new.” He looked at the parents and smiled. “He’ll be fine now, the dressing will dissolve over the week as a scab forms and heals naturally.”

 

“Thank you SO much,” the mother said. “And the young lady, will she be alright? It was a very brave thing she did…, in fact, how did she do it?”

 

John grinned at them. “Her name is Angel, and she’s a very special young lady.”

 

The family watched as two orderlies brought a spinal scoop out of the airship and gently fixed Angel to it, ready for transport back to Torchwood Tower. Andre held her hand all the way through her ordeal and continued to hold it as she was lifted onto the airship and fixed onto the flight couch. He held her hand during the short flight back to Canary Wharf, and he held it as she was transferred into a bed in the ward on the second floor.

 

By the time Angel had her right arm in a sling, and her wounds had been treated, she was an internet phenomenon. Videos and photos had been uploaded onto social media websites, all carrying the title of 'angel of mercy'. The news networks got hold of footage taken from the beach, and the cliff top, and asked the question, 'who was this angel of mercy?' Angel was quite embarrassed when she watched it on her bedside TV that evening, what with her breasts all hanging out for everyone to see.

 

"Don't be embarrassed Sweetheart, zey are very nice breasts," Andre told her with a cheeky grin.

 

"Now, now Andre, that's no way to talk to a young lady, unless you two are an item," Jack Harkness said as he approached. He gave them his perfect smile and a knowing look. He had seen it coming, that their friendship would develop into love. "The phones haven't stopped ringing, mainly from reporters wanting the inside gossip on our angel of mercy, the last call though was from the President, wanting to know who our flying field agent was."

 

"Flying field agent?" Angel repeated.

 

"Well, I didn't tell her you were a child care assistant here, but that was taking child care to the extreme. So how would you feel about taking the entrance test? I think you've got the right stuff to be an excellent field agent, and you'd have a very good mentor," he said, waggling his eyebrows at Andre. "Although, there would be one thing we'd have to change."

 

"What?" Angel asked, looking slightly concerned.

 

"Your uniform, it would have to be custom made so that it opened at the back; can't have you flashing your boobs every time you need to fly, oh, and you need to practice flying whilst carrying a load; can't have you ending up in here every time you need to fly with luggage."

 

Angel giggled and looked at Andre. "What are you thinking about this?"

 

"I am thinking zat zis iz a brilliant idea, it means zat we can work together, like Shon and Rose work together," he told her.

 

She looked at Jack and smiled. "Then I am feeling good about taking the test." She turned to Andre, and with her left hand, she reached up and gently pulled him into a kiss.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

 ** Central London ** ** Ambulance Station. **

 

**2004**

 

Andre Coultarde climbed into the cab of the ambulance, with his paramedic partner Beth, for the start of their evening shift. He had been in the Ambulance Service for eighteen months now, after moving from his home in Geneva, and training as a paramedic. His training didn’t take that long, as he had already trained as an army medic when he did his compulsory national service back home in Switzerland

 

“Oh, here we go,” Beth said, reading the jobs on the emergency call display. “They’re starting early tonight; a van has overturned on the Westway.”

 

“Okay, zat sounds like one for us, show us attending,” Andre said as he started up the engine, and turned on the blue lights.

 

Within minutes, they were on the Westway, heading towards the accident. Up ahead, they could see the blue flashing lights of the police cars that were already on the scene, directing traffic from two carriageways, down into one. He pulled the ambulance to the side, and stopped behind one of the police cars.

 

While Beth went on ahead and spoke to the police, Andre reached the emergency holdall out of the back of the ambulance, and went to join her as she was being taken to the overturned vehicle.

 

“They appear to be foreigners,” the officer told them. “The driver and front seat passenger were wearing seat belts, but the three people in the back of the van were thrown about.”

 

“Ah, zere iz  a strong possibility of neck injury zen,” Andre suggested.

 

“Yeah, and there’s something else,” the officer said hesitantly. “They were all wearing wigs, and seem to have some kind of genetic abnormality or mutation.”

 

“Wigs?” Beth said in puzzlement. “Mutation?”

 

“You’ll see,” is all the officer would say.

 

They started their cursory examinations of the casualties, and quickly noticed the abnormality. They were indeed bald, and this allowed them to see that the shape of the cranium was different to that of a normal person, with ridges of bone running along the sides of their heads, and very small earlobes, that could almost be called vestigial.

 

They were immobilising the casualties necks as a precaution, and checking for spinal injuries, when a black ambulance, accompanied by black Range Rovers, turned up at the scene and black uniformed soldiers started to take over.

 

“Zey’re not human, are zey?” Andre asked one of the soldiers, as a doctor and nurse tended to the strange inhabitants of the vehicle.

 

The soldier grinned at him, apparently pleased with his insight. “Er, no, they’re not.”

 

“What are you talking about, not human?” Beth asked, not ready to believe in aliens.

 

Andre on the other hand, was prepared to suspend his disbelief, and contemplate more practical matters. “So 'ow do you know 'ow to treat them?” he asked, completely unfazed by the possibility that they could be aliens.

 

This impressed the soldier no end, and he gave Andre a business card, which was black, with the name Torchwood Institute on one side, the ‘T’ being made of hexagons, and the name Duncan Prescott on the other, with a phone number.

 

“If you really want to know how we treat their injuries, call me tomorrow,” the soldier said.

 

The next morning, Andre called the number and was invited to an interview with Captain Andy McNab, who was impressed with the young paramedic. His military training and medical skills would be very useful in the Special Operations Unit. He offered him a job, and after finding out what the Institute was about, and the kind of career it could offer, and of course, he accepted their offer.


	2. Shan Shen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John takes the family to Shan Shen, as Rose comes to the end of her maternity leave.

** Chapter 2 **

  


 

The Smith family walked down a street filled with flags, paper lanterns, pagodas and various crowded stalls. The sound of traditional Chinese folk music floated down the street, giving a magical atmosphere to the neighbourhood. They were heading towards San Cha Lu Kou market, following the sound of the music, and the wonderful smells of cooking food and burning incense.

 

Flying cars hummed overhead, and a pale, ringed planet, with pale moons peeped through the wispy clouds of the morning sky. They were on Shan Shen again, where Rose wanted to pick up some more of her favourite bath salts, shower gel, and that perfume that drives John wild.

 

Also, it was chance for their six month old son, Jason to try the Shan Shen Shake, an extra frothy smoothy type milk shake, the flavour of which was matched to your personality by the vendor.

 

Jason, like his sister, had been born on the TARDIS, but unlike his sister, his arrival was not as an emergency, early delivery. It was a carefully planned, bang on time arrival. Both Rose’s Obstetrician, Dr. Thurlow, and her Midwife, Vanessa, had said that they would love to go inside that mad box again, and made themselves available around Rose’s due date.

 

On the 31st of March, the day before she was due, her waters broke in the evening, and she called Vanessa for advice. There were no contractions yet, so Vanessa had started to make her way to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, telling Rose to relax and call her back when the contractions started and became regular. That evening, they put Eyulf and Juleshka to bed in their rooms on the TARDIS, and had settled down to watch TV in the TARDIS sitting room.

 

When the contractions became regular, just after midnight, John had landed the TARDIS in the corridor outside the Delivery Suite of the hospital, and let Dr. Thurlow and Vanessa in. He had already rigged up a portable birthing pool in the Medi-Bay, and Rose was reclining in the pool, naked, wearing a headband fitted with electrodes that stimulated the pleasure centres of her brain, and released endorphins to control her pain.

 

In his swimming trunks, John had eased down behind Rose and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and one around her abdomen, nibbling her ear, and kissing her neck. She had reached up and run her fingers through his great, messy hair. And after breathing through a couple of contractions, Jason Peter Smith had been born quietly and quickly, without any fuss.

 

Rose was now on her final few weeks of maternity leave before going back to her new role as Field Agent Supervisor at Torchwood, and wanted to take Jason to show to some old friends before she did.

 

“Ah, John, Rose, it is so good to see you again, how are you?” a middle aged oriental man said with a bow.

 

John and Rose returned the bow. “Chen Li, we’re fine,” John said. “How’s business?”

 

“Good, still the best shakes in the galaxy… And who’s this?” he said, spotting the baby in the pushchair. “Another addition to your beautiful family, I will have to have a word with Mai Ling and stop her from putting that aphrodisiac in your perfume, Rose.”

 

“Chen Li!” Rose said, blushing and smiling at the same time.

 

“This is Jason,” John said to the grinning Chen Li. “He’s come for his initiation to the Shan Shen Shake.”

 

“Ah, very good, let me see then… Hello young master Jason, what flavour are you then?” he asked, crouching down to be eye to eye with him. Jason smiled, kicked his legs excitedly, and held his arms out towards Chen Li.

 

“Oh, friendly, confident, and happy,” Chen Li said with a smile. “An outgoing personality… that would be…, strawberry, with a hint of banana.” He stood and smiled at the rest of the family. “And you’ll be having your usual, I presume?”

 

“Yes please,” Rose said, as he went to prepare the drinks at his stall behind him.

 

After a minute or two, he turned towards them. “Ladies first…, chocolate and vanilla for Miss Juleshka, who is calm and sweet,” he said, handing over her cup. The nearly two year old, took the cup and politely said thank you.

 

“Chocolate and lime for Rose, reflecting her compassion and strength. Next, young master Jason, strawberry and banana.” He handed the cup to Rose, so that she could hold it while Jason drank it.

 

“Young master Eyulf, your caramel, reflecting your mellow, deep intellect, and finally, banana for John, because…, well, because no one loves a banana like John does.”

 

They all took a big swig of their drinks, leaving them with cream moustaches, even Jason, who had grabbed the cup, and tried to help himself to the drink. He smacked his lips together, and everyone laughed at the expression of amazed enjoyment on his face.

 

“I think Mr. Li has done it again Mum,” Eyulf said. “He definitely likes his shake.”

 

They all bowed politely to Chen Li, and said their goodbyes, before moving off down the stall filled street. They knew they were coming to Mai Ling’s perfume stall before they even saw it, due to the heady scents being carried on the breeze. Rose spotted the pretty, petite, young woman handing over a paper bag of goods that a customer had just purchased.

 

“MAI LING,” Rose called to her, and started to hurry towards her. The young, oriental woman, dressed in the utilitarian mandarin jacket and trousers, turned to see who was calling her, and her face beamed a smile when she saw it was her friends the Smiths.

 

“Rose, how good to see you again,” she said as she hugged her friend. “I saw the photos you loaded on Face-Blog, where is he?”

 

John came strolling up to them with the pushchair. Mai Ling greeted John with a kiss on the cheek, and stooped down to hug Juleshka and Eyulf, before turning to the occupant of the pushchair.

 

“Here he is, you must be Jason,” she said, reaching him out of the pushchair. “Oh, isn’t he just gorgeous.”

 

“Takes after his mother then,” John said with a smile.

 

“Welll, yes,” Mai Ling said. “But he’s cute as well, so he takes after you as well.” She stepped over to her stall. “Now, you come with Auntie Mai, and we can get Mummy’s bath salts and perfume, can’t we,” she cooed at Jason, who was scrutinising her face, realising that her facial features were not the same European features of his parents.

 

“Chen Li says you have to leave out the aphrodisiac,” John said. “Three’s enough.”

 

Mai Ling gave a bubbly laugh. “You wait ‘til I see him…, maybe I should put some in his aftershave.”

 

They chatted and gossiped, and Mai Ling lavished attention on the children, before they said their farewells and carried on exploring the market. When they arrived at an adjoining street, they saw that it was lined by pedestrians, all looking to the left in expectation. They heard the banging of drums and cymbals, which accompanied the melodic wailing of a bamboo flute.

 

“Oh, of course,” John said. “It’s Shan Shen New Year.”

 

Down the street, they could see the lion dance making its way towards them, with musicians walking alongside, scaring away the evil spirits, with jugglers and acrobats entertaining the crowds.

 

“They must be students of Master Lau in the lion,” Rose said. “We must go and pay our respects while we’re here.”

 

“Of course, he’s probably out here enjoying the festivities at the moment. We’ll wait until we’ve seen everything, and then we can go to his school.”

 

The kids enjoyed the whole spectacle, cheering and applauding the entertainers. A street magician made objects disappear in front of their eyes, only to have them reappear out of thin air. It was a carnival atmosphere, and there were arts and crafts for people to try their hand at, and their three children enjoyed having their faces painted.

 

They eventually made their way down the street to the Master Lau’s Academy of Martial Arts, and went inside. There was a large mat area, with stands of traditional weapons around the walls, as well as punch bags, and wooden dummies. A small, wiry man approached them, putting his right fist in his left palm and bowing to them.

 

“Rose, John, it is such a pleasure to see you again.”

 

“The pleasure is our’s in seeing you in good health Master,” Rose said, returning the fist in palm bow with John.

 

“And another family member if I’m not mistaken, no doubt here to have his first taste of a Shan Shen Shake.”

 

Rose laughed. “This is Jason, and Chen Li has already given him his initiation.”

 

Master Lau smiled and gave Jason the fist in palm salute. “Then welcome to Shan Shen, young Master Jason. May it be the first of many visits?” Jason looked at his own hands, trying to imitate Master Lau, but not quite having the coordination to pull it off.

 

“Look Daddy,” Juleshka said. “He’s trying to salute Master Lau.”

 

“Please my friends, come through to the kitchen and have some tea, you can tell me about your latest adventures,” Master Lau said, beckoning them towards the back of the hall. “My students are out, performing in the New Year celebrations, so it’s nice and peaceful here at the moment.”

 

Sitting at the table with their cups of fragrant tea, John and Rose explained how they had changed their roles at Torchwood, so that they could stay more focussed on their children.

 

“Ah, yes, family is very important,” Master Lau agreed. “However, I hope you are maintaining your skills, it would be a shame to let those slip.”

 

“We have a gymnasium at Torchwood, where we have to train regularly to keep us at our peak performance,” Rose said.

 

“Good, because that video of you fighting that Caxtarid on your ship is essential viewing for my new students,” Master Lau said with a smile.

 

“Really?” Rose said in surprise. “What, with all that showboatin’ I did?”

 

Master Lau chuckled. “There is nothing wrong with ‘showboating’ as you call it, if your victory is assured. Demonstrating superior skill and ability can often end a fight before it has even begun.”

 

Rose laughed. “Yeah, that sounds like somethin’ Captain McNab would say.”

 

“Do you remember me telling you about Sun Tsu in the old universe,” John said. “Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”

 

“Oh yeah, Bruce Lee said somethin’ like that in Enter the Dragon,” Rose remembered. “He practiced the art of fighting without fighting…, didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now.”

 

Rose had been a big fan of Bruce Lee when she was at school, using her gymnastic skills to imitate a lot of his moves without really understanding the martial art behind them. Little did she realise then, that she’d be doing it for real when she was an adult. And that imitation had given Andy McNab a good foundation to build on when he taught her combat training for Torchwood, although he thought she was still a bit prone to showing off with her fancy moves.

 

“And how is your ‘sticking hands’ and ‘pushing hands’?” Master Lau asked them. “We must practice after our tea if you have the time.”

 

“We will always have time for you, Master Lau,” Rose said.

 

They finished their tea, and went through to the training hall, where Master Lau found a crash mat for Eyulf and Juleshka to jump on and have fun, while he went through some training moves with John and Rose.

 

John went first, favouring the pushing hands from Tai Chi, which used leverage, reflex, sensitivity, timing, coordination and positioning, working to undo a person's natural instinct to resist force with force, teaching the body to yield to force and redirect it. John’s hybrid Gallifreyan reflexes meant that he was a natural at this, and even an accomplished master like Master Lau, could not fault his technique.

 

Although Rose could also do pushing hands, she wasn’t as good as John, and favoured the Wing Chun sticking hands, which was more dynamic, and involved controlling the opponents attacks by maintaining contact with their arms and redirecting the energy, before snapping back with an attack of your own. And even though she was outclassed by Master Lau, he nodded in appreciation of her considerable skill, and complimented her abilities.

 

“Can I have a go, Mum?” Eyulf asked, as he climbed off the crash mat, leaving his giggling sister rolling about on the top of it.

 

“Why not?” Master Lau said with a laugh. “It is always good to start them young.”

 

Master Lau knelt down so that he was at the same height as Eyulf, and they bowed to each other, with the fist in palm salute. They then touched arms, and started moving them around like cobras rearing up ready to strike. John and Rose smiled as Eyulf had a look of concentration that became a smile of pleasure as he started to get the hang of it.

 

Master Lau on the other hand went from an amused smile, to a puzzled look and finally to a look of astonishment. It seemed that Eyulf had inherited his fathers Gallifreyan reflexes and abilities, and was able to give this master a run for his money.

 

“Extraordinary,” Lau said as he lowered his hands. “I have never seen such skill in one so young. He is a natural.”

 

“Did I do good?” Eyulf asked, smiling at his parents.

 

Rose came over and ruffled Eyulf’s hair, a proud smile on her face. “Yes son, you did good. Like father, like son, eh John? Thank you for your time Master Lau, we should be getting along now.”

 

“No, thank you, it has been a pleasure, and an experience,” he said raising his eyebrows at Eyulf.


	3. Back to work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose starts back at work after her maternity leave, and they start their new daily routine. We also get a back story of one of their friends.

** Chapter 3 **

 

 

** Torchwood Special Operations Standby Room. **

 

 ** Torchwood ** ** Tower ** ** ,  ** ** Canary ** ** Wharf ** **. **

 

 ** 08:00 ** **. **

 

 

Rose had a big grin on her face, it was her first day back after maternity leave, and although she missed being with her young children, it felt good to be back in her dress uniform.

 

“Right then people, I hope you’ve had an enjoyable and relaxing weekend and are ready for another week of wonderful weirdness,” she started, with her usual greeting.

 

There was cheering and applause, with choruses of ‘Hi Rose’, ‘Good to have you back, Babe’, and various other enthusiastic welcomes.

 

“Yeah, thank you, I’ve missed you lot too. Now, down to business, firstly, I’d like to thank Chrissie and Duncan for standing in while I was away.” That got another round of applause and a nod of acceptance from Chrissie Anderson, the Lead Technical Support Specialist.

 

“Secondly, I’d like you all to give a big, Blue Watch welcome our new recruit to the Watch, Angel.” The watch cheered and applauded again, as they welcomed the rookie agent into the fold.

 

“She’ll be paired up with Andre..., naturally,” she said, giving them a cheeky grin, which got another round of cheering, and some whistles. She then proceeded to hand over from Green Watch, who had been on the night shift, and allocated jobs to the various teams. When that was done, there was one final item on her briefing list.

 

“Some of you may have noticed Director Harkness at the back of the room; he has an announcement to make, so I’ll hand over to him…, Jack?”

 

Jack stood up, and walked to the front of the room with a big smile on his face. “Director Harkness? That’s a bit formal for in here,” he said to Rose.

 

“Well, ya know, like to keep it professional an’ all that,” she replied.

 

“And a good job you’re making of it too.” He looked at the questioning and worried faces of the Watch, wondering what the unexpected announcement could be.

 

“Good morning everyone, no need to look worried, I just wanted to bring you up to speed with a request that was made to the Institute, via the Public Relations Department.” There were murmurs of questions, as people wondered what could have come from PR.

 

“After the introduction of the new look body armour, designed by John, and our new recruit making a spectacular rescue of a child from the cliffs at Dover, a few months back, there has been a lot of media attention about us, and a television production company has approached us to see if they can do a fly-on-the-wall style documentary.”

 

The body armour he was referring to, had been inspired by the X-Box game ‘Halo’, that John had played with Jake one evening when it was quiet. John really liked the look of the ‘Spartan Battle Armour’, and decided to redesign the Field Agents uniform so that they no longer had a separate respirator mask and battle helmet, but instead had the all in one helmet of the same design as the game.

 

The body armour was made of a lightweight Kevlar, that incorporated a wrist computer, and environmental controls that kept the wearer at a comfortable temperature. Since they had appeared on missions wearing the new armour, the media had once again taken an interest in Torchwood.

 

“Oh, I love those shows,” Jake said. “Cops with Cameras, Emergency Bikers, will it be like that?”

 

“Yes, that would be the general format; they would use footage from the internal surveillance cameras, from your helmet cameras, and also have camera and sound people out with each team.”

 

“Er, what about our covert equipment and operating procedures, wouldn’t they be compromised if everyone saw them on TV?” Stuart Sinclair asked.

 

“A very good question, Stuart, which is why I contacted the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, William Jenkins, to ask him how they dealt with security when they were filming the ‘Cops’ programmes. Our Media Laboratories will supply them with the surveillance footage, which will be pixellated as necessary, and the camera crews will only be allowed into an area, after it has been deemed safe by you lot.”

 

“Who’s doin’ the voice over? Jamie Theakstone does the ‘Cops’ programmes,” Jake said, warming to the idea of becoming a TV star.

 

Jack laughed and consulted his paperwork. “It’s that Scottish actor who’s a dead ringer for John, David Tennant.”

 

“Ooh, I like him,” Gwen said. “He was brilliant in that crime drama ‘Broadchurch’.”

 

“Yeah, I enjoyed watchin’ that, until John worked out who did it and told me,” Rose said, rolling her eyes.

 

“Anyway,” Jack said, bringing them back to the topic of discussion. “Participation is voluntary, and anyone who doesn’t want to be on the show, needs to let me know by Wednesday. Rose, as you and John are already celebrities, the producer was hoping you’d agree to be on the show to draw in the viewing audience.”

 

Rose groaned. “Well, I can’t speak for John, but I know he won’t be over the moon about it, but as long as we’re not made out to be the stars of the show…, y’know, just in the background, and if it helps to promote Torchwood, then yeah, we’ll do it.”

 

Jack beamed his perfect smile at her. “Good girl. Okay then people, that’s everything, and let me know by Wednesday.” He started to walk out of the room, before turning back to address Rose. “You’ll tell John then when he arrives, yeah?” and quickly exited Special Operations.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

 ** Port-au-Prince ** ** ,  ** ** Haiti ** **. **

 

** 2004. **

 

 

 

An eighteen year old Julia Santos walked down the Rue Monseigneur Guilloux, between the Unite Securite Presidentielle and Palais Des Ministeres buildings, with the fellow members of her patrol. They were all wearing the light blue combat helmets of the United Nations Peacekeeping force, and were there as part of the Stabilisation Mission established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1542 on the 30th April 2004.

 

The Security Council deemed the situation in Haiti to be a threat to international peace and security in the region, and UN peacekeepers entered Cité Soleil in an attempt to gain control of the area and end the anarchy.

 

With a Spanish father, a Dutch mother, and being born in London, Julia had always felt as though she was born as a member of the United Nations, and with her father travelling all around the world with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, it was only natural that she joined the peacekeepers. And she thought it would only be natural that she would meet a fellow peacekeeper, and fall in love. Boy, did she get that one wrong.

 

On her last visit home to her parents in London, she had gone out to a nightclub, and heard someone having a conversation in Dutch. She naturally moved towards the conversation, and said hello, and found out that the Dutch hunk in front of her was from her mother’s home town, and they knew some of the same people. By the end of the night, they had shared phone numbers, and a very passionate kiss.

 

She was brought back to the present, by a scuffling noise from the side of the Palais Des Ministeres. As the patrol stopped and formed a protective cordon, she moved down the side of the building, and looked around the corner. She saw two shadows, people in black uniforms, standing over a man who was lying on the ground. She crept forwards, and raised her M16 rifle.

 

“Freeze!” she said calmly, without shouting, and was slightly unnerved by the fact that they didn’t move at all. Normally, when you told someone to freeze, they either looked around, or raised their hands, these two shadows did nothing. Then, she had a knot of fear in her stomach, as she felt the cold gun metal on her temple, just below her helmet.

 

“You’re good,” a voice said in her ear. “But trust me; you really don’t want to get involved in this.”

 

“I’m a member of the United Nations Peacekeeping force, it’s my job to get involved,” she told the voice in annoyance.

 

“Ah, but this guy isn’t from any nation on Earth, united or otherwise,” the voice said.

 

“What?”

 

“Come and have a look.” She felt a firm grip on her elbow lead her forwards to the man on the ground.

 

“Okay Zygon, the gig’s up, why don’t you show yourself, and we can wrap this up and get out of here.”

 

The man on the ground groaned and rolled his neck, which started to broaden and develop suckers, as his head became conical, and his skin turned red.

 

“He’d taken the position of the gang leader, and was trying to destabilise the election.”

 

“What…, is he some kind of alien?” Julia asked.

 

“Yeah, and we’ve just arrested him. C’mon team; let’s get him out of here pronto.” They helped the Zygon to his feet and started to march him down the side of the building.

 

“My patrol is down there,” Julia told them, thinking there might be trouble.

 

“Yeah, we know,” the voice said, as they stepped onto the street and moved towards a black van. Her patrol was lying on the pavement, apparently asleep. “Sorry about that.”

 

“Are they alright?” Julia asked urgently, crouching down to check for a pulse.

 

“They’re fine; they’ll wake up in a few minutes, with no idea of what happened.”

 

“Who are you?” Julia asked, looking at them as they put the alien in the van.

 

“Captain Andy McNab, Torchwood. Here, have my card, and give me a call when you get back to London.”

 

Julia Santos watched as the black vehicle did a ‘U’ turn in the street and headed for the airport, intrigued as to why she had been given a business card.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

Dr. John Smith drove his DeLorian, the short distance to the primary school in Lonsdale Road, Notting Hill. He had two infants strapped into their child seats in the back, and Eyulf was in his booster seat in the front passenger seat. Once he had dropped his son off at the school, he would drive to Tyler Mansion, where his in laws, Jackie and Pete, would have Juleshka and Jason for the day.

 

Since they had changed their roles at Torchwood, the Smiths had been able to change their daily routine. They would get up together, have a very enjoyable shower together, have breakfast together, before waking the children, and getting them ready for their day. Rose had arranged that she would get a lift into Torchwood with one of the watch members who lived out their way, so that she would be there at the start of the shift for the briefing.

 

John would then finish getting the kids ready with the help of Donna-The-Robot, a Honda Asimo look alike, but without the backpack. She had fully articulated fingers, and an LED screen face that showed the face of Donna Noble. It was a physical extension of Donna-The-House, and Rose thought she was brilliant when John presented her as a surprise present last Christmas.

 

And so, whilst John was changing Jason’s nappy, Donna-The-Robot would be putting Eyulf’s lunch bag together and making sure he had all the things he needed for school. Juleshka would go and decide which of her favourite toys she was taking with her, and put them in the holdall. It helped being the Scientific Advisor for Torchwood, his hours were more flexible, and he could pretty much come and go as he pleased, deciding that he would be working from home when Rose was on a day off.

 

“Hello Eyulf,” the young teacher said at the door. “I suppose we’ll be seeing more of you from now on, Dr. Smith.”

 

“Please, call me John, and yes, Rose started back at work today, so it’s a trial run so to speak, of our new routine.”

 

The teacher looked across to the open gull wing door of the DeLorian. “And how are your other children taking to the new routine?”

 

John laughed. “A bit puzzled I think that their mother left on her own, but looking forward to going to Grandma’s, and Jules will be joining your nursery class next year.”

 

“Oh yes, I look forward to it.” Some more children approached with parents, so John said his goodbyes and went back to the car, while the teacher shepherded them inside.

 

After driving for fifteen minutes, John approached Tyler Mansion, and entered the access code into the on-board computer, which then sent the encoded signal to open the security gates. He drove up the driveway, and pulled up by the steps to the front door. He released the clasp on Juleshka’s seat belt, and she climbed out of the car, making her way eagerly up the steps to the front door. He unclipped the carry seat, and lifted it out of the back of the car, along with the holdall which contained all of the things Jackie would need for the day.

 

“Gra’ma!” Juleshka called out as she got to the top of the steps, and was lifted into a hug by Jackie.

 

“Hello Sweetheart, have you come to spend the day with Grandma and Grumps?”

 

“Yeah, Mummy’s gone to work.”

 

“I know she has… Mornin’ John, how are things workin’ out?” Jackie asked as he reached them at the door.

 

“Fine so far, Rose got a lift in with Danny, and I’ll make my way in when these two are settled. It’s a big help now that I’m on flexible hours,” he said as they went inside and made their way down the hallway.

 

“Oh that’s good, got time for a cuppa then?”

 

“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

 

John sat down on the sofa, and unbuckled his son from the carry seat.

 

“Ooh, give ‘im ‘ere, let Grandma have a munch,” Jackie said, stooping down to lift him out of the seat.

 

“So, I know you said you were okay with having the two of them, but it won’t affect your work with the Foundation will it?” John asked.

 

Since he’d retired, Pete had set up the Tyler Charitable Foundation, a benevolent organisation that not only supplied technical assistance to global relief agencies, and search and rescue organisations, but also funded and sponsored bright students from underprivileged backgrounds, giving them the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

 

“Nah, we’re fine…, and besides, we love havin’ the kids over.”

 

When Jenny, the maid, brought in the tea on a tray, Pete followed her in, having returned from taking his nine year old son Tony, to school.

 

“Morning John, back to the old routine then?” Pete said as Juleshka ran up to him, calling out ‘Grumps’, and holding her arms up to be picked up. Pete Tyler had been late in coming to fatherhood; he was fifty six when he ‘adopted’ Rose, after his new ‘old’ wife arrived, and a year later, they had a son. Now he had three grandchildren, and he had never been happier or more contented.

 

“Well, a new old routine, yeah,” John said with a smile. “I was just saying to Jackie that I hope we’re not interfering with your charity work.”

 

Pete gave a single laugh. “Hah! Since I’ve retired, I’ve never been busier, but there’s no stress, and I can choose the hours that I work, mostly in the evening at functions and dinners.”

 

He kissed his granddaughter on the cheek and lowered her to the floor. “And the added bonuses are, I get to work from home, I get to work with my wife, and I get to spend time with the kids.”

 

John nodded and smiled at that sentiment, he loved working with his wife, and he loved his children, something he wouldn’t have thought possible six years ago. And, thinking of working with his wife, he thought he should probably drink his tea and get moving.

 

“Be a good girl for Grandma and Grumps,” he said to his daughter, as he picked her up for a hug and a kiss.

 

“I will Daddy.”

 

Jason was perched on Jackie’s knee, smiling and gurgling away. John knelt down and blew a raspberry on his cheek, before kissing it and ruffling his hair. “See you later little fellah, not too many full nappies for your grandmother, eh?”

 

He stood up, said his goodbyes to Pete and Jackie, before heading for the DeLorian, and the half hour drive to CanaryWharf, where he would check in with the Shift Supervisor, who would bring him up to speed on any new artefacts that had been found, or any unusual reports that had been logged.

 

When he arrived in Special Operations, he first checked out the Supervisor’s bum with his hands, followed by her lips, with his own lips, before checking if there was anything that needed his urgent attention. Through their telepathic link, he could tell that there was something that she was hesitant to tell him.

 

“So?” he asked her with a raised eyebrow.

 

“What?” she said, feigning innocence.

 

“What is it you don’t want to tell me?”

 

“Ah.” She’d been busted. She tried to think of a way of telling him that would soften the impact. “Er, do you remember the programme ‘Broadchurch’, with that Scottish actor, David Tennant?”

 

“Oh yeah, the one you’ve got the hots for,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “A good show, but a bit obvious as to who did it.”

 

“Says you. Of course I’ve got the hots for him, he’s a dead ringer for you,” she replied, giving him her teasing smile. “Anyway, how would you like to meet him? He’s comin’ to the Isle of Dogs, and is goin’ to pop in to say hello.”

 

“What..., here..., what for?”

 

“He’s doin’ a voiceover…, for a new fly-on-the-wall documentary, y’know, like Emergency Bikers, and Motorway Cops, the ones you like.”

 

“Oh yeah,” he said enthusiastically. “So, what’s the documentary then?”

  
“Er…, it’s gonna be called Torchwood.”


	4. Production meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another back story, and a guest appearance at Torchwood.

** Chapter 4 **

 

 

 ** Birmingham ** ** City ** ** Centre. **

 

** The People's Republic of Great Britain. **

 

**2004.**

 

The young police constable was running through the pedestrian area of St Martin’s square, behind the Bullring shopping centre, weaving in between the market stalls in pursuit of his suspect.

 

‘God this kid is fast!’ he thought to himself as he tried to keep up. They were leaving the shopping area behind, and heading towards the side streets, which contained workshops and warehouses. The suspect turned down a side street, and the police constable started to ease back, it was a dead end, and the suspect was cornered.

 

He ran into the side street, and jogged to a halt. The suspect was trying the door to a factory unit to see if it would open.

 

“POLICE!” the young officer shouted breathlessly. “I’m placing you under arrest for suspected drug dealing. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence… Do you understand the caution?”

 

The suspect didn’t answer; he just glared at him in contempt. The young officer had the feeling that he wasn’t going to come quietly, and that he was going to fight his way out of the corner. He took his canister of pepper spray out of his belt pouch, just in case.

 

“Put the bag down, and turn around with your hands behind your back,” he ordered. The suspect didn’t move.

 

“I will use this pepper spray if you don’t comply.”

 

The suspect's glare of contempt, turn to a look of trepidation, and the young officer straightened his shoulders with his newly found confidence, his threat of the spray had worked, or so he thought.

 

“That’s a nice condiment you’ve got there young man,” a voice said behind him. “I’m sure he’d love it on his steak.”

 

The young officer quickly glanced over his shoulder to see two men in black uniforms, before looking back at the suspect. Surely they weren’t his accomplices.

 

“Keep back please; I’m in the process of arresting this man. It’s an offence to interfere with an officer in the execution of his duty,” the young officer warned the strangers.

 

“What’s the charge?” one of the men asked.

 

“Suspected dealing in class 'A' drugs,” the officer replied.

 

“Hah! He’s not a drug dealer, are you Pashtek?” the man with the greying hair and nicely trimmed beard said. “No, he’s a courier, and not many would have seen the exchange, you’ve got sharp eyes.”

 

“Courier? Are you from the drugs squad?” the officer asked.

 

“Ooh, a sharp mind as well,” the bearded man said as he looked to his colleague and grinned. “I like him; he’s ticking all the boxes.” He turned back to the officer. “It’s not drugs in the bag, it’s weapons…, very unusual weapons…, weapons that shouldn’t be here, and certainly shouldn’t be traded on a street corner.”

 

The young officer reached for his radio to call for back up. If there were weapons involved, he needed firearms support.

 

“It’s alright son, we’ll take it from here, and besides, your radio won’t work at the moment.” The grey bearded man took out a side arm and shot the suspect.

 

“What the hell!?” He pointed the pepper spray at the black uniformed men. “Drop the weapon,” he commanded.

 

“Calm down lad, we’ve only stunned him. Those Peladonian couriers run like whippets if you don’t stun ‘em. Here, have a look.” He threw the stun gun to the officer, while they went to handcuff the suspect.

 

It was fair to say, that the young officer was puzzled and confused. This unusual ‘soldier’ had just shot his suspect, and then handed him the gun, how crazy was that?

 

“Suspect secure, we need extraction,” the bearded man said, and a black van drove past the end of the street, and then reversed down towards them. The bearded man picked up the suspects bag, and took his stun gun back off the officer.

 

“I’ve not seen a weapon like that before, who are you, MI5, Anti Terrorist Squad?”

 

“There goes that sharp mind again,” the bearded man said, and gave the young officer an appreciative stare, as though he was trying to look into his soul. He put the stun gun back in his holster and smiled. “Would you like to see more like it?”

 

That question stunned the puzzled and confused young officer. “Er, yeah…, y’know, I think I probably would.”

 

“What’s your name constable?”

 

“Simpson, PC Clive Simpson.”

 

“McNab, Captain Andy McNab,” the bearded man said, reaching into a top pocket, and taking out a card. “Call me, and I’ll arrange a visit for you, and maybe you’d consider a change in career.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

** Torchwood Conference Room. **

 

 ** Torchwood ** ** Tower ** ** ,  ** ** Canary ** ** Wharf ** **. **

 

 ** 10:00 ** **. **

 

The members of Blue Watch were sitting around the dark oak table, along with John, Jack, Andy, Chrissie, Duncan, and a selection of support staff from various departments who would be included in the documentary. Green Watch had agreed to come in on overtime to cover the shift, while Blue Watch had their meeting with the production company.

 

The rest of the seats were taken by production staff, camera operators, and sound recordists from the company, and a special guest who would be doing the voice over. There were booklets for everyone which included names and photographs of all the people present, except for Andy, who had his reasons for not having a photograph.

 

Jack brought the meeting to order, and introduced the visitors. “I suggest you keep these booklets with you while you get used to everyone,” Jack said, before handing over to the Production Manager, Laura Edwards.

 

“Thank you Director,” she started, and got a stern look from Jack. “Sorry..., Jack. I would like to take this opportunity to thank ALL of you who have agreed to participate in this project. What I would like to do this morning, is go through some of the production techniques that we will be using over the next few months.”

 

She used the multimedia remote, and started a PowerPoint presentation. “Captain McNab…, sorry, Andy, has agreed to be our technical advisor, although due to his former anti terrorist work with the SAS, has declined to be on camera, in case he is recognised and compromises the safety of the Institute. His deputy Duncan has agreed to be the on screen Watch leader.”

 

“Way to go Doughnut, at least the camera lens won’t keep breakin’,” ‘Welsh’ Pete said, which got a ripple of laughter around the room.

 

“And that kind of banter is just what we are looking for on the show,” Laura said. “So please don’t be afraid to speak up. Now, I presume that you are familiar with the format of these documentaries, where we have video of each of you, with a short biography, so Rebecca, our Production Assistant, will hand out these questionnaires.” A young redhead stood up and started handing out the forms.  

 

“All we want to know is your name, and nickname if you’ve got one, job title, how long you’ve been with Torchwood, and a simple light hearted like and dislike that will make you more approachable to the viewers. I think we’ll bring in the tea and coffee, while you discuss the forms and fill them in.”

 

The group stood and made their way to the drink dispenser at the back of the room. Many of the production crew stood at the large window, looking out over London, while they waited their turn at the drinks machine.

 

“You do realise that you are goin’ to be asked for your autograph by everyone here, don’t ya,” Rose said as she came and stood next to David.

 

He laughed and smiled at her. “It’s me who should be asking for all your autographs, I mean, you’re heroes, all of you, putting your lives on the line to defend the Earth from aliens.”

 

It was spooky, close up, he was so much like John, that he could have been the Doctor. While Rose was contemplating this, she realised that she had been staring at him. “Oh, I’m sorry; it’s just that you are SO much like my husband that it’s uncanny.”

 

“That would be Dr. Smith,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I’m a bit of a fan.”

 

Rose’s mouth fell open. “A fan? But you’re a famous actor, we’re just…, well, just people doin’ a job.”

 

Before David could answer, John appeared with a cup of tea for his wife. “There you go Love…, oh, hello, can I get you a drink?” he said when he saw that she was talking to David.

 

“Er, I think Laura’s getting me one thank you,” David said, staring at John. “You were right, the likeness is uncanny.”

 

John grinned at him. “Yeah, it’s a hell of a burden being this foxy, isn’t it?”

 

David burst out laughing, and looked at Rose. “Oh, I like him.”

 

John put his cup of tea on a window table and took out his booklet with everyone in it. “While we’ve got you to ourselves, could I be cheeky, and ask for you to autograph you picture in the book?”

 

“John?!” Rose said in disbelief.

 

“What? It’s for the kids,” he lied.

 

David took the booklet and pen off John. “It would be an honour to give an autograph to heroes like yourselves.”

 

“Heroes? Us? Nah, I don’t know what Rose has been telling you, but we’re just doing our jobs,” John said.

 

Rose rolled her eyes. “That’s what I told him, he thinks that we fight aliens every day.”

 

“What? Oh, no, we don’t fight them, well..., not very often, well…, occasionally…”

 

Rose took David’s arm. “Ignore him, David… oh, can I call you David?”

 

“Of course you can, and can I call you Rose and John, or do I have to use your titles, Supervisor and Doctor Smith?”

 

“Nah, we’re just John and Rose, there’s nothin’ fancy about us.”

 

“Can I just say that for an heiress, you are refreshingly down to earth,” David said.

 

“Thank you, that’s a real compliment…, ah, there she is, come and meet an alien,” Rose said, as she guided him towards Angel. “Angel, this is David…, he’s the actor who will be doing the voiceover on the documentary.”

 

“Hello,” David said, holding out his hand. “Oh, you’re the lady who was on the news; you rescued that child off the cliff, with the wings and everything.”

 

Angel smiled and shook his hand. “You are the policeman who was on the television. Did you know that Dr. Smith looks like you, are you related?” she said in a blunt, direct fashion.

 

“Er, I’m not really a policeman, I just played the part for the show, and yes, I do look like John, and no, we’re not related.” He hesitated before asking the next question. “And you’re an alien?”

 

She gave a bubbly laugh, and tucked her silver hair behind her pointed ears. “You are speaking correctly; I am not from this planet.”

 

David was speechless, he was talking to an alien, he’d shook hands with an alien, and apart from the cute ears, she looked like a very attractive human.

 

“Rose, I am in need of help with one of the questions,” Angel said.

 

“Really, which one’s the problem? The questions are simple and straightforward,” Rose said.

 

“It is the question of what I like… I like practicing the making of babies with Andre… should I put that?”

 

David spluttered a laugh, and Rose smiled kindly. “Maybe you should just say that you like your field partner, eh?”

 

“Yes, thank you Rose, I will tell them that,” she said with a nod.

 

Rose thought that maybe she should just check the answer to the other question. “Er, and what about your dislikes…, what have you put for that?” She was hoping the answer wasn’t about sexual positions, toys or techniques.

 

“I do not like being injured,” she said simply.

 

Rose breathed a sigh of relief and stroked Angel’s arm. “That’s fine Angel.”

 

Everyone got their drinks and sat back at the table, the members of Blue Watch discussing what they should put for their likes and dislikes. When everyone had finished their drinks, and their answers, Jack called the meeting back to order.

 

“Right, if you’ve all given your answers, Rebecca will collect your questionnaires, and Laura will give us a quick run down on the format of the show, and what we can expect during the day to day filming.”

 

“Thank you Jack,” Laura said, standing up and switching to the next screen on the presentation. “Now, for continuity and story telling, we will start each episode with the briefing, which means that you Rose will be taking a pivotal role in setting the scene for the content of each episode.”

 

‘Oh great’, she groaned in her head. She could hear John chuckling in her thoughts, as Laura continued.

 

“Each team will have a film crew with them to follow the action, and I understand that Andy will be briefing them on the do’s and don'ts of health and safety. One of the film crew will ask what is going on, playing the part of the viewing audience, and we would like one of the team to give a brief description of what is occurring.”

 

Julia raised her hand to ask a question. “What about the rare shifts when not a lot happens, what do you film then?”

 

Jack answered that one. “They will show the day to day operation of Torchwood, fitness training, equipment maintenance, office work, as well as other areas, forensics, computing, multimedia, and such like.”

 

“Thank you Jack and that brings me nicely to the tie in’s for each of the teams, Dr. Smith, as Lead Scientific Advisor, your commentary on the assessment of situations and artefacts will be pivotal in ending a particular story.”

 

‘Oh brilliant!’ John groaned in his head. It was Rose’s turn to chuckle in his head.

 

[“Serves you right for laughing at me,”] she said in his thoughts.

 

[“Yep, what goes around comes around. Just when we thought it was safe to have a normal life.”]

 

The rest of the meeting involved technicalities in filming, and how internal security camera footage, and helmet camera footage would be edited together by Danny Davis, the On Line Editor, to tell the story. The final edit would be scrutinised by Jack and Andy to maintain operational security, so as not to compromise any sensitive equipment or methods of working. When that was finished, David signed autographs for the watch, before they headed down to the Multimedia Laboratory Studio to have their videos taken to accompany the biographical information.

 

“Perhaps Rose would like to go first,” Laura said. “Y’know, show everyone how it’s done, being a celebrity and all.”

 

Jack snorted a laugh at the look of indignation on Rose’s face.

 

“Wha? I’m not a model, or a Mata Hari, or somethin’,” she said.

 

Jack stepped in, before Laura could apologise. “We know, but we might as well start somewhere, and the Watch Supervisor seems as good a place as any.”

 

“Hmph…, okay, so what do I have to do?”

 

Chris, one of the Camera Directors, gently guided her to a turntable against a white wall. “If you could stand on the turntable, and when it turns, the camera will zoom in for a head and shoulders shot, oh, and you can smile for the camera.”

 

Rose stood on the turntable, with her back to the camera, and her hands on her hips. As the turntable started to turn clockwise, she looked over her right shoulder at the camera and smiled.

 

“Oh, that was brilliant, you’re a natural,” Derek said. “Just do that three times, and we can pick the best one.”

 

When Rose had completed three, slow rotations, everyone knew what they had to do, and with a lot of giggling and false starts, they all had their smile-to-camera shots.

 

“Okay everyone, well done. I think it’s time we had some lunch and got to know each other,” Jack said, referring to the film crews who would be pairing up with the Blue Watch teams.

 

The restaurant was crowded, full of Torchwood staff who had agreed to be in the documentary, the film crews, and the production assistants, all mingling in a buffet lunch. David Tennant was strolling around talking to everyone, and trying to get to know the people he would be introducing to the viewers, so that they felt like friends, rather than strangers.

 

He then came across Andy, and although he knew he wasn’t in the documentary, he started chatting to him anyway, because he was really interesting to talk to.

 

“So, you used to be in the SAS, how did you end up in Torchwood?” David asked.

  
Andy thoughtfully stroked his beard. “Hmm, that’s an interesting question.”

 


	5. On air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another back story, and the Torchwood documentary goes on the air.

** Chapter 5 **

  


 

** A disused office building. **

 

** Central London ** **. 2003. **

 

** 01:00 ** ** Hours. **

 

 

Captain McNab was leading a six man team on a raid in an empty office building, except it wasn't empty. They had been watching it for days now, and knew it contained a terrorist cell that was intent on destroying London in a spectacular fashion.

 

Two of his team were on the roof, ready to move down through the building, two were at the back, and he was at the front with the final member of the elite, anti terrorist SAS squad.

 

The police had cordoned off the street, so they had the area to themselves, or so he thought.

 

"All units in position Captain, and ready to go," a voice said over his ear piece.

 

"All units, go, go, go."

 

Three explosions happened at once, as C4 explosive blew the doors off their hinges, and the six men ran inside.

 

Tap, tap, tap. Andy heard a short burst of weapons fire, and heard a calm, clinical voice report in his ear piece. "Target down, moving on."

 

Andy moved quickly and quietly through the ground floor, ensuring that it was secure, before entering the stairwell, and ascending to the first floor. Andy went down on one knee opposite the door to the first floor corridor, and readied his weapon. His partner held the door handle, and pulled.  The corridor was empty, and Andy moved quickly into a covering position, as his partner followed him and moved ahead.

 

A bearded, dark skinned young man came out of a door ahead of them, carrying an AK 47 assault rifle. Before he could raise the weapon, there was a double rattle of fire as both Andy and his partner fired. The terrorist jerked backwards, dead before he hit the floor.

 

“Target down, moving forward,” Andy said, detached from the fact that he had extinguished a human life. He was a surgeon, cutting out a cancer, a cancer that would kill millions of innocent people if given the chance.

 

There was the unmistakable rattle of AK 47’s firing, followed by the controlled tapping noise of Heckler & Koch HK MP5’s.

 

“Target down… Captain, we have a black uniformed casualty here. Is there another unit in here with us?” a voice asked in his ear piece.

 

What the hell?! What was going on? The area was secure and cordoned off. “All units, be aware, there may be another unit operating in the building, select your targets carefully,” Andy announced over the radio headset in his gas mask.

 

All members of the team made their way towards the target room, where a weapon of mass destruction had been readied for deployment, and grouped outside the two doors at either end of the room. They placed C4 explosives on the hinges, and prepared to detonate.

 

“All units, on my mark, three, two, one, go, go, go.”

 

The doors blew off their hinges, and there was a burst of fire through the doorway, from the smoke inside. There was no one in the doorway though, the SAS soldiers were lying on the floor, and they returned fire towards the muzzle flashes that could be seen through the haze.

 

Tap, tap. “Target down.”

 

Tap, tap. “Target down.”

 

“That’s it,” Andy said into his headset. “All targets accounted for.”

 

They moved carefully into the room as the smoke and dust started to settle. In the middle of the room was a complex looking, intricate wire polygon which was the size of a football. At the centre of the polygon, was a gemstone that shone with an intense white light. It looked like nothing on Earth that they had seen before, mainly because it didn’t actually come from Earth.

 

“What the hell kind of nuclear device is that?” one of the team said as he pulled off his gas mask to get a better look.

 

“It’s not a nuclear device,” a voice said from the door, and six Heckler & Koch HK MP5’s turned and prepared to fire. Three men entered the room, and raised their arms, holding their weapons by the barrels.

 

“Put the weapons on the floor and step away,” Andy ordered.

 

The three men did as he requested, and the weapons were collected.

 

“Who are you?” Andy asked. “You may look like Special Forces, but you lack the skills and reflexes that come with the territory.”

 

“You are correct Captain, I’m a scientist from the Torchwood Institute, and these men are from UNIT. It was there job to get me in here safely, so that I could secure the device.”

 

“What is it? It doesn’t look like a nuclear device,” Andy said, lowering his weapon and walking over to the alien object.

 

“It’s not; it's a warpfold conjugation held in a carbonised shell, a sort of antimatter power supply, it's part of a star ship hyper drive engine.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Andy, said dismissively, he could sort that out later. “Is it dangerous?”

 

The scientist approached the sphere and knelt down to inspect it. After a few seconds of cursory inspection, he looked up at Andy. “It’s safe! The terrorists would have tried to cause it to go into overload, which would have caused a matter, antimatter annihilation.”

 

“And that’s bad, yeah?” Andy asked.

 

The scientist gave a single laugh. “Oh yes, Britain, Scandinavia, Northern Europe, right out to the Balkan States would have been flattened.”

 

One of Andy’s team whistled in disbelief. “Holy shit!”

 

“Indeed,” the scientist said, and reached for his breast pocket; six machine guns quickly pointed at him again. “Sorry, I just need to reach into my pocket, and show you my authorisation from the President.”

 

Andy nodded, and the scientist took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it over. Andy looked at the official Parliamentary order, which gave the man in front of him, full jurisdiction in the handling and disposal of the item.

 

“Okay lads, we’re done here. Move out and we’ll hand over to the uniforms,” he said turning around and walking out of the room. It was up to the police now to clean up and dispose of the bodies.

 

In the minibus, on the way back to the base in Hereford, they opened cans of beer, and started to wind down from the adrenalin rush that accompanied every mission. They started discussing the mission, in the light hearted, Mickey taking fashion that helped to relieve the stress, asking the questions, ‘what the hell was that object’, and ‘what the hell is the Torchwood Institute’?

 

Later that morning, Andy went to the colonel’s office for a debriefing of the mission, only the colonel wasn’t alone, there was a smartly dressed woman sitting in front of the desk.

 

“Ah, Andy, good morning,” the colonel said as he entered the room. “I’ve read your report on the mission, good work on securing that nuclear warhead.”

 

Andy looked confused. “But…,” he started to say.

 

“Yes, I’ve briefed the colonel on how you dealt with the terrorist threat,” the woman told him. “I don’t know about you, but I could do with some breakfast.”

 

“But…” Andy was led from the office and guided towards the mess hall. “Who the hell are you?” he asked the blonde, who was getting some questioning looks from the soldiers on this male dominated base.

  
“Yvonne Hartman, Director of the Torchwood Institute, and I’ll get straight to the point, Captain, I’d like to offer you a job.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

Dr. Marla Jones squeaked and gasped as her orgasm shuddered through her body. She hooked her heels at the back of her lover’s thighs, just under his buttocks, and pulled him into her, for one last, long squeeze with her pelvic muscles. Her head dropped back onto the pillow, and she blew out a long, satisfied breath.

 

“Phew! Where did you learn to do that?” she asked, with a dreamy smile.

 

Duncan Prescott, who had been supporting his weight on his arms, slowly lowered his torso to rest on her body. He gave her a wicked smile. “You really don’t want to know,” he said as he kissed her neck and collarbone.

 

“I’ll be the judge of that Mister; I want to know everything about you.” When she had been taken to Torchwood, after being abducted by aliens, she had noticed the Deputy Special Operations Lead Agent, and he had noticed her. He had gone out of his way to debrief her and make her feel welcome, even asking her out for a drink, which she had readily agreed to.

 

And now, after a few weeks of going out for drinks, for dinner, to the theatre, he was debriefing her in a totally different way.

 

“Okay, if you’re sure…, it was when I was in the SAS, on a mission in the Far East. She was a fit little prostitute, what she could do with a ping pong ball,” he whispered in her ear as he nibbled it.

 

“Er, okay, you can stop there. That’s way too much information,” she said with a frown. “I hope that was after you were divorced.”

 

“Oh yeah…, in fact, I think it was a reaction to our divorce, I was angry and wanted to show her that I could get by without her.”

 

Marla was stroking his cheek sympathetically. “What was she like, your ex?”

 

“What, Colleen Donnelly? She was a good Protestant girl so she was,” he said in a very believable Belfast accent. “I was on a tour of duty with the Para’s, and it was love at first sight. After a whirlwind romance, we got married, probably too young and naive, but we WERE in love.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“It was when I passed the selection for the SAS regiment that it started to go wrong. I would disappear for weeks at a time, and she wouldn’t know where I was, or even if I was still alive. When I look back at it now, I can see that it must have been torture for her. I came back from a mission overseas, and found a note saying that she couldn’t take it anymore.”

 

“And is that when you left the SAS?” Marla asked him.

 

“Nah; that was Andy’s doin’. I would see him occasionally on the base in Hereford, he was working in counter terrorism, and I was working in intelligence gathering and covert surveillance. We were on a mission together once, and I must have made a good impression, because after he had left the unit, he came back to the base one day and said he was setting up a new unit, and needed a deputy.”

 

“And that was Torchwood, yeah?”

 

“That’s right, before that, the scientists had relied on UNIT to supply the troops for their operations.”

 

“And now, they have hunks like you,” she said with a grin. “So I’d better let you get some sleep if you don’t want bags under your eyes for your first day in front of the camera.”

 

“Oh well, if you can’t take the pace, I can always go home,” he said, rolling off her and making intention movements to get out of bed.

 

She rolled with him and ended up sitting on top of him. “Can’t take the pace? Tell you what, you get that thing to stand to attention, and we’ll see who gets bored first,” she said, rubbing her pubic region against his.

 

He put his hands on her hips. “Dr. Jones, you’re a bad influence on me.”

 

She giggled and waggled her eyebrows. “Too right I am.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air. **

****

****

The exciting, rhythmic drum laden music started as footage of black Range Rovers sped down streets, and skidded around corners.

 

David Tennant’s soft Scottish voice introduced the show. [“Torchwood: outside the government, beyond the police.”] Field Agents, clad in black Spartan armour, moved stealthily through warehouses.  

 

[“Fighting for the future on behalf of the human race. The 21st century is when everything changes.”] A stealth airship moved towards the camera, as it panned upwards, to watch it pass over head.

 

[“And Torchwood is ready.”] There was an aerial shot of Torchwood Tower, as the camera circled around.

 

[“Our cameras have been given exclusive access to this once secretive organisation.”] Uniformed agents walk purposefully past the camera in the Standby Room.

 

[“To bring you, the real…, Torchwood.”] The screen faded to black, and a white ‘T’ made of hexagons, approached from the distance, and moved to the left, leaving the word ‘TORCHWOOD’.

 

“Ooh, nice opening credits,” Jackie said as she, Pete, and Tony watched the first episode of the Torchwood documentary.

 

“Yeah, it makes it look more exciting than it really is,” Pete said.

 

The show opened in the Briefing Room of Special Operations. [“It’s eight o’clock in the morning,”] Tennant announced. [“And Shift Supervisor for Blue Watch, Rose Smith, takes over from Green Watch, who have been on the graveyard shift.”]

 

The screen splits into two, with a shot of Rose in her dress uniform, with her back to the camera, which zoomed in, as she turned and smiled. In the right hand pane, a number of statistics typed out.

 

 

Name: Rose (The Wife) Smith.

Position: Shift Supervisor.

Time with Torchwood: 10 Years.

Likes: Chips.

Dislikes: Putting on weight (from eating all the chips).

 

 

“Oi, who told them that they could put those things in brackets,” she asked the large, plasma screen TV in the living room of their Notting Hill home.

 

John and Eyulf looked at each other conspiratorially, and gave a discreet high five.

 

"Oh, this is goin' to bring back some embarrassin' memories," Rose said, snuggling up on the sofa with John and the kids.

 

"Nah, it all worked out right in the end," John said, putting his arm around her.

 

The scene cut to an interview with Rose in her office. “At the start of a shift, our priority is to take over from any of the teams still out there, so that they can go home and get some rest. Then it’s a case of looking at the status boards, and prioritising the response, with public safety coming first, followed by national security, and then protection of property.”

 

The scene cut back to the Briefing Room, where Rose is giving the briefing. “All teams are back in, and there are no outstanding operations. Gwen is on Despatch today, so Craig you’ll be on competency training.”

 

[“Every shift, one of the team works on the Despatch Desk, collating all the intelligence that comes from the Technical Support Team,”] Tennant said, as the camera showed staff sitting at the communications desk of the Despatch Office, answering phones, monitoring news feeds from Reuters, CNN, BBC, and SKY on the multimedia screens, monitoring civilian and military radio traffic, and trawling satellite data for anything strange.

 

[“While their field partner takes the opportunity to update their training in weapons, equipment, fitness, and combat.”]

 

The scene cut back to Rose. “So, item one; police have got a creature cornered in an empty shop in the centre of Milton Keynes, which from a witness's description, sounds like a Weevil. I think this would be a good one for Angel to try out, with Andre as her backup.”

 

Torchwood archive photos of a Weevil came up on the screen, with Tennant describing it. [“Weevils are roughly humanoid in shape and size, but are a bit taller and have flattened faces with many sharp, fang-like teeth. Though faster and stronger than humans, they are not extraordinarily powerful and can be stunned with electricity. They usually live in the sewers, and eat anything they can find…, a sort of alien rat.”]

 

“Item number two; a suspected alien abduction in Norfolk. Radio Norwich ran a story about a couple on a boating holiday on the Broads, waking up in a crop circle, three miles away from their boat where they had gone to sleep,” Rose read from her tablet PC.

 

“Was it Alan Partridge?” Jake asked with a cheeky grin.

 

“A-Hah!” Danny Walton said, completing the famous catch phrase.

 

“And for that wise-crack Peg, you get to drive all they way there and check it out,” Rose said with a smile, and turned to his field partner Julia. “Sorry Julia.”

 

“No problem, I’ve got a CD of Puccini opera we can listen to on the way there,” Julia said with a wicked smile. Jake groaned and looked decidedly unhappy.

 

“And item three, Communications have been monitoring the military wavelengths, and Army Ordnance has been called to a suspect device found in a limestone quarry in Derbyshire. We’ll keep an eye on that one, and see if anything develops… That’s it people, lets move and groove.” Rose gave them a broad smile, and everyone stood up and started moving out of the room, as the scene faded out.


	6. I’m gonna hunt me a Weevil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The documentary gets underway as the cameras follow two teams. A Pete's world version of an old adversary seems to be lurking.

** Chapter 6 **

  


 

** Torchwood - In Production. **

 

 

Rose went over to one of the four Camera Directors, Matt Jackson, to see how she did on her first ‘shoot’. “Was that okay? It felt a bit weird doin’ it in front of a camera.”

 

“No, it was great, especially the banter with…, what was his name…? Jake,” he said after consulting his chart. “That will endear him to the viewers, and show the camaraderie in the Watch.”

 

Rose laughed. “Oh, there’s plenty of that alright. So, what happens next?”

 

“Well, I’ll go with Jake and Julia to the alien abduction.”

 

“Suspected alien abduction,” Rose corrected him.

 

Matt smiled at her. “Right, Chris Greenwood will go to Milton Keynes with…, Angel and Andre. Will Hustler and David Rea will film you and the other teams as they wait for something to occur.”

 

“Ooh, you’d better get movin’ then, they’re ready to go to the carpool,” Rose said, as she nodded to the door that Julia and Jake were heading for. Jake had raised his arm, and was beckoning for Matt to follow.

 

“Oh, right, thank you, see you later,” he said as he picked up his camera and ran after them.

 

She made her way over to Angel and Andre, who were briefing Chris about their mission. Angel saw Rose and smiled excitedly.

 

“I am grateful to you for letting me lead this mission, I will not disappoint you,” she said.

 

Rose smiled and rubbed her upper arm. “I know you won’t, you’re ready to take the lead, and I remember my first mission as lead agent, all excitement and trepidation…, just remember to stay safe, yeah?”

 

Angel glanced over her shoulder at Andre. “I will bring him back in one piece, he is taking me to the theatre tonight, and it would be difficult if he were in many pieces.”

 

Rose laughed as she watched them leave Special Operations with their cameraman in tow. She turned and headed towards the remaining two cameramen, who were chatting with the rest of the Watch.

 

“So, what do you want do while we wait for work to break out?” she said with a smile.

 

“Well, if it’s alright with you, we’d like to get some ‘fill in’ shots, y’know, taking phone calls, watching what Stuart and Pete get up to while they wait for a ‘shout’,” Will Hustler said.

 

“And what do you do after the morning briefing?” David Rea asked her.

 

“Well, if Despatch is quiet, I grab a cuppa and go an’ do some paperwork in the office.”

 

“Oh, that’ll be good footage, mind if I tag along?”

 

“It’s only a cup of tea, I don’t know if that’ll be rivetin’ television,” she said with a laugh. “And don’t you dare try an’ follow me into the toilets.”

 

David laughed. “Okay, tea and office only.”

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air. **

****

****

The screen split into two again, and the left hand pane showed Andre, in his black uniform, the camera zooming in as it had with Rose.

 

 

Name: Andre (The Giant) Coultarde.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 16 Years.

Likes: Snowboarding.

Dislikes: Racial intolerance.

 

 

In the Range Rover, Andre was talking to the camera in the back of the car. “When we arrive at ze scene, Angel will deploy a surveillance drone to locate ze alien. She will zen identify ze alien and assess ze threat. Finally we will stun ze alien and take it into custody.”

 

The screen split into two again, and the left hand pane showed Angel, in her black uniform, the camera zooming in, showing her pointed ears as she turned and smiled.

 

 

Name: Angel (Wings).

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 2 Years.

Likes: Her field partner.

Dislikes: Being injured.

 

 

[“Angel is the latest recruit to the Special Operations team, and this is her first operation as lead agent. She had been working at Torchwood for a couple of years as a child care assistant, when she took child care to a whole new level with this spectacular rescue.”]

 

Archive news footage of her rescue at Dover came on the screen, with her naked breasts tactfully pixelated to save her embarrassment, before the scene cut to an interview with Angel about the incident.

 

“I did not stop to contemplate my actions; there was a child in mortal danger. I did what any concerned citizen would do; I did my best to save the child.”

 

“To be fair, there aren’t any other citizens I know who could have done that,” Tennant said from behind the camera.

 

Angel looked puzzled, and then realised what he meant. She smiled and looked over her right shoulder, as she fluttered her wings slightly behind her.

 

“You speak correctly; I do have an ability that other citizens do not.” The front of her uniform looked like everyone else's, but it was a roll neck, halter design, and left the back of her shoulders free for her to use her wings.

 

On screen, the black Range Rover came down the street, and pulled up outside the empty shop, which was cordoned off with the blue and white police tape. This footage had been filmed after the event, with Greenwood standing opposite the shop, with Angel driving around the block a couple of times, so that they could get an arrival and departure shot.

 

They climbed out of the Range Rover, and spoke to the police officer who was standing guard.

 

“Hello officer, my name is Angel, this is Andre… Do you have any information for us?”

 

“Hi, I’m Richard,” the officer said, shaking hands with them. “The shop is in the process of being fitted out for new business. One of the workmen saw something in the store room at the back of the building, thought it was a vagrant at first, y’know, looking for some where to sleep, but it was like no vagrant he’d ever seen before. Scared him half to death, whatever it is.”

 

“Is the workman available for us to interrogate?” Angel asked, and the officer looked concerned.

 

“Interview, Angel, ze word you want iz interview,” Andre corrected, to which the officer relaxed and smiled.

 

“My apologies Richard, I am speaking incorrectly, is the workman available for us to interview?”

 

“Er, yes, he’s in the patrol car, having a cup of tea. C’mon, I’ll take you over.”

 

They went over to the patrol car, which had the rear door open, and a man in white overalls was sitting on the back seat, with his feet on the pavement. Angel took her tablet PC, and selected an image of a Weevil.

 

“Hello, my name is Angel, and this is Andre, we are from Torchwood, and would like to ask you what you saw in the retail premises.”

 

“Buggered if I know! Not seen anythin’ like that before, all teeth and snarlin’ like a Rottweiler,” the workman said, still visibly trembling hours after the event.

 

“Did it appear like this?” Angel asked, holding up the tablet for him to see.

 

“Yeah, that was it, what the hell is it?”

 

“We give them the name Weevils, but we do not know what the real name for them is, or where they come from,” Angel told him. “Thank you for your cooperation.” They went back to the Range Rover and started sorting their equipment.

 

[“The agents deploy a covert surveillance drone, which for security reasons we cannot show you. However, we can show you the video feed from the drone.”]

 

They showed Angel operating the ‘spy-fly’ with her tablet PC, and then the screen filled with the image from the drone, with certain information pixelated out for security reasons. Off camera, Greenwood had asked her what she was doing, and then filmed her response.

 

“In addition to video, the drone has a number of sensors, and I am tracking down a heat signature using the infrared camera,” she said, as she looked intently at the screen of the tablet.

 

On the television, the viewers could see the eerie, black and white image of the interior of the shop, through a zigzag corridor, and into the store room at the rear. In one corner, a brighter area could be seen behind some abandoned storage bins. Angel parked the ‘fly’ on a wall where the video feed would show a continuous feed of the alien, just in case it decided to move.

 

[“They’ve located the alien at the back of the shop in the store room, and it’s time for them to ‘tool up’ and attempt a capture.”]

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

[“While the Torchwood Range Rover drives itself to Norfolk, agent Julia De Graff calls Norwich Radio to get the details on the story that they broadcast on the news,”] Tennant narrated, as the dashboard cameras filmed Julia.

The screen split into two, and the left hand pane showed Julia, in her black uniform, the camera zooming in as she smiled.

 

 

Name: Julia (Van) De Graff.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 17 Years.

Likes: Cooking.

Dislikes: Washing up.

 

 

“Hello, is that Norwich Radio…? My name is Agent De Graff from the Torchwood Institute, we are following up on a story that you ran early this morning about a couple who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.”

 

While she was on her mobile phone, Jake was in the passenger seat on his tablet PC, looking at Google Earth, and getting the layout of the area. All Torchwood vehicles had been upgrade with superconducting electric motors, and onboard computers that could drive the vehicles themselves.

 

“Right, do you have a contact number for the couple? We are on our way to their location to conduct an investigation,” Julia said into her phone, and listened to the reply. “They wish to remain anonymous…, okay, we can appreciate your confidentiality policy, it can be embarrassing when no one believes you…, just a moment please.” She turned to Jake. “Which is the nearest police station to the incident?”

 

Jake did a quick search. “Hoveton Police Station, they patrol the waterways from there.”

 

“Great, get a number and give them a call… Hello, yes, can you contact Hoveton Police Station and give them the couple’s details? We will contact them independently and ask them for the confidential information.” Julia listened, and smiled. “That’s lovely, thank you for your cooperation…, bye.”

 

She ended the call, and turned to the back of the car to explain to Matt Jackson, who was filming them. “Although we have the same authority and powers of arrest as the police, the general public are not usually aware of this, so we work closely with the police to share information and resources.”

 

On the dashboard camera, Jake could be seen finishing the call to the Hoveton police. “The police are going to take their boat and call on the couple. They said that they’ll meet us at the Ferry House Inn at Surlingham, that’s the closest road access to where they are moored.”

 

The screen split into two as it had for Julia, and the left hand pane showed Jake, in his black uniform, and as the camera zoomed in, he gave a wink and a cheeky grin.

 

 

Name: Jake (The Peg) Simmonds.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 13 Years.

Likes: To party.

Dislikes: Being serious.

 

 

“So, that’s a result, we get to have a pub lunch,” he said with a grin at Julia. “1 Ferry Road, Surlingham, Norwich, Norfolk NR14 7AR,” he said out loud.

 

“Destination confirmed,” a female voice said from the dashboard. “Estimated time of arrival, thirty four minutes.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

The scene cuts back to an outside shot of Torchwood Tower, before showing John walking through Special Operations, towards his wife's office.

 

["Doctor John Smith arrives in the Special Operations Unit, and checks in with the Shift Supervisor, who just happens to be his wife, Rose Smith,"] Tennant tells the viewing public, as the screen split into two again, the right hand pane giving John's statistics.

 

 

Name: John (The Doc) Smith.

Position: .Senior Scientific Advisor

Time with Torchwood: 6 Years.

Likes: Bananas.

Dislikes: Pears.

 

 

John rotates in the left hand pane to face the camera, wearing his brown, pin striped suit, and with his hands in his pockets. He gives a big grin to the camera.

 

"Anything happening?" he asked Rose, as the scene cut back to her office

 

"Angel and Andre are out rounding up a Weevil, and Jake and Julia are investigating a suspected alien abduction."

 

"Ooh, really? We haven't had one of those for a while, not since we registered a complaint with the Shadow Proclamation. Were the victims returned?" John said.

 

"Yeah, fortunately; that's how we heard about it when it was reported on Radio Norwich."

 

"A-ha," John said in his Alan Partridge voice.

 

["Believe it or not, there is a galactic police force out there called the Shadow Proclamation, and the planet Earth is now on their beat, with the Torchwood Institute being in regular contact with them about matters of global security."]

 

The camera panned from her office, across the Standby Room, to Pete ‘Welsh’ Davies lounging on a comfy sofa, reading a gossip magazine, whilst Clive ‘Bart’ Simpson, and Danny ‘John Boy’ Walton, played on the XBox. Stuart ‘Irish’ Sinclair was sitting at one of the tables, drinking coffee and watching the news.

 

[“The remaining members of Blue Watch, relax while they wait for jobs to come in to the Despatch Office,”] Tennant explained.

 

The camera focussed on Pete, and the screen split into two.

 

 

Name: Pete (Welsh) Davies.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 16 Years.

Likes: His Moto Guzzi V7 Racer motorbike.

Dislikes: Not being able to ride it at over 70 miles an hour.

 

 

Will Hustler, one of the Camera Directors, had asked him a question off camera, and was filming his response. He closed the magazine and showed it to the camera.

 

“Gossip mags, some of the best sources of unusual phenomena on the planet,” he said with a grin. “I mean, who except the Sun newspaper would run a story about a mother in law unzipping her forehead to let out a green alien? It’s priceless.”

 

[“As preposterous as that story sounds; it rings an alarm bell with the Senior Scientific Advisor.”]

 

The door of Rose’s glass fronted office was open, and John had overheard Pete’s piece to camera. “Pete, run that by me again.”

 

“I was only joking Doc, I was just saying how some of the stories in these magazines are like the call outs we get.”

 

John walked over and leaned on the back of the sofa, Rose put a hand on his shoulder, and leaned in with him. “No, I mean the story about the mother in law.”

 

“Er, hang on, let’s see… She came back off holiday and seemed a bit different to the daughter in law. She went to visit her one day and noticed a bright light through the back room window, thought she’d bought a sun bed. When she looked in through the window, she saw her mother in law unzipping her forehead, and there was a green alien inside,” Pete read.

 

“And does it say anything about the mother in law breaking wind all the time?” John asked.

 

Pete read down the page. “How did you know that? She stated it was all the rich food she’d been eating on holiday.”

 

"I bet she did! Where was she holidaying, on Raxacoricofallapatorius?” John said.

 

Rose had spotted the same references as John, and went into alert mode. “Get on the phone to the editor and get the contact details. If the daughter in law is still alive, get the address of the mother in law and get a surveillance team out there. Then contact the local police and ask them to cordon off the street," she told Pete as she walked over to the Despatch Office. "Gwen, can you call Duncan in his office, tell him we have a possible code red.”

 

Clive and Danny had paused their game, and walked with Stuart through to the Despatch Office, with Duncan arriving a minute later.

 

“What have you got, Rose?” Duncan asked, as the screen split into two again, and the left hand pane showed him, in his black uniform with the camera zooming in.

 

 

Name: Duncan (Doughnut) Prescott.

Position: Deputy Head of Special Operations.

Time with Torchwood: 17 Years.

Likes: Thai food.

Dislikes: Musicals.

 

 

“A seemingly tall story from a magazine,” Rose reported. “But the details seem to point to aliens that John and me have met before, and it hasn’t gone well each time we’ve run into them.”

 

"Yep, instead of a little green man from outer space, we've got a big green woman," John said with a smile.

 

“What threat level are we looking at Doc?” Duncan asked.

 

“Well, they tend to operate in family groups, and the family business usually ends up being something that is completely immoral, illegal, and detrimental to all but the family themselves,” John told him.  

 

“Family, so there’s more than one of these aliens?” Duncan surmised.

  
“I’d stake my reputation on it,” John said, and Duncan knew, like everyone else in Torchwood knew, in fact, like a lot of people around the globe knew, that it was one well of a reputation.

 


	7. Close encounters and crop circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The documentary follows the agents in the field (literally), and two back stories in one.

** Chapter 7 **

 

  


** Torchwood - In Production. **

****

****

After thirty four minutes of driving, the Range Rover pulled into a parking space opposite a white building, with blue wood trim. The road ended at the Inn, where it became the lawn of the Ferry House Inn, which abutted the River Yare. A number of expensive, privately owned boats were moored, along with charter hire boats of holiday makers. A navy blue hulled boat with a white cabin had the words ‘POLICE’ emblazoned on it, and two officers in baseball caps and life jackets were sat at a picnic table, with a young couple who looked decidedly uncomfortable.

 

Julia looked over to the back seat and spoke to Jackson. “Can we hold off on the filming for a moment? I want to go and introduce myself, and see if they’ll be okay with you filming them. It sounds as if they’re a bit embarrassed by the whole thing.”

 

“Yes, of course. I’ll wait here until you tell me otherwise, that’s the operating procedure we agreed with Captain McNab.”

 

Julia nodded and smiled at him, then got out of the car, and walked over to the picnic bench. The two police officers stood as she approached.

 

“Agent Julia De Graff, Torchwood,” she said, holding out her hand.

 

“PC Colin Fox,” one dark haired officer said, shaking her hand.

 

“PC Andy Fleming,” the other fair haired officer said. “They’re a bit nervous, and shy of any publicity.”

 

“Yeah, that’s understandable, can you introduce me, it’ll break the ice, and they’ll trust you more easily than they will me.”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Colin said. “They seem like a really nice, ordinary couple… Sebastian, Debbie, this is Julia, she works for the Torchwood Institute.”

 

Julia shook hands with them and sat down. “Hello, I understand you had a bit of an unusual experience last night.”

 

“Er, yeah, we don’t really want to talk about it,” Sebastian said.

 

“Let me start by saying that the reason we have come all the way here to talk to you, is that we believe you, and we can find out who did this and prosecute them,” Julia said, reaching across the table and gripping their hands.

 

“Prosecute aliens?” Debbie said.

 

“Oh yes, if it was aliens, then there is a Galactic law enforcement agency that will arrest them.”

 

The two police officers looked as stunned as the victims. “Really?” Colin asked.

 

“Yes, really. Now, we have a television camera with us today, trying to show people what we do, would you be agreeable to them filming this investigation? You can be in it, or you can be pixelated, or we can just film our investigation without you being in shot.”

 

“Would it be alright if we weren't on the programme?” Debbie asked.

 

“Of course, I’ll just have a word with the Director, and then I’ll treat you to lunch while we ask you some questions.”

****

****

** Torchwood - On Air. **

****

****

Andre and Angel helped each other put on their personal armour, until they looked like the characters from the Halo game. The viewers saw them grin at each other, before putting on their helmets. Each side of the helmet had a small spot light and camera, which gave a 3D video feed to Torchwood.

 

They prepared their stun guns for firing, and pressed a button on the wrist bracer, which powered up the armour. The mirrored visor on the helmet lowered, which activated the head up display, and switched on the internal air supply. Greenwood filmed them entering the shop, and the scene then cut to their helmet cameras and intercom.

 

The agents worked as a coordinated team, approaching the alien from different directions, viewing the ‘spy-fly’ feed on their helmet displays, to ensure that they could see the target at all times.

 

“Be ready Andre, I am going to let the target see me to provoke a reaction,” Angel said.

 

“I’m ready, be careful.”

 

Angel move from cover and startled the Weevil, which stood, growled, and lunged towards her.

 

Zap! Andre discharged his stun gun, and the Weevil fell to the ground at Angel's feet. She took out her scanner and checked that the Weevil was fully asleep.

 

[“The Torchwood stun gun, works like a police taser, but has no wires to deliver the shock. A bolt of energy discharges through the target and renders it unconscious, allowing the agents to safely neutralise any threat.”]

  
They called Greenwood in, and he filmed them as the visors on their helmets rose, revealing enormous grins on their faces. They approached each other and gave a high five.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

[“Although the suspected abductees declined to be interviewed on camera, they did agree to Julia and Jake conducting an investigation,”] Tennant said, as Jake came and spoke to the camera.

 

“We’ve scanned the victims with some of our high tech equipment, and found that some of their isotope decays are outside of the normal range. We’re now going to ask the local police to take us to the victim's boat, and see if we can find any evidence there,” Jake explained.

 

[“Isotope decay is a natural process, and scientists can use it to date archaeological finds. A change in the rate of decay may indicate that the victims actually left Earth’s gravity,”] Tennant told the viewers.

 

Jackson filmed the police boat moving away up stream, before it circled around to pick him up. It would be a continuity shot for the finished episode. He filmed the approach to the small, chartered boat, and Julia carefully stepping into it, followed by Jake. He handed the camera to Jake, and stepped over himself.

 

[“On the boat, the agents scan the structure of the boat, and the night clothes the victims were wearing.”]

 

“The roof of the cabin is showing signs of being disrupted by a transmat beam,” Jake said to Julia.

 

“Yeah, and their night clothes. We’ll bag them and take them back with us; the labs might be able to tell us whose transmat it was.”

 

Jackson filmed, as Jake took off his backpack, and took out two evidence bags, and put the pyjamas and night dress into them. Julia spoke to the camera.

 

“So we’ve got some physical evidence that indicates that the victims were actually abducted, and the labs back at Torchwood should be able to identify which race actually carried out the abduction, although Jake and I already have our suspicions.”

  
Once again, Jackson stayed on the boat, filming the police heading back down river, before it circled back to pick him up. Back at the Ferry House Inn, they told Sebastian and Debbie that their clothing would be returned to them once it had been analysed, and they thanked the local officers for their assistance and cooperation.

 

All that was left to do was visit the crop circle where the couple had woken up, and search for physical evidence that might identify the perpetrators. The Range Rover drove down the country lanes, following the satellite data downloaded from Torchwood Tower, and stopped at a gate to a field.

 

Jackson filmed Julia and Jake walking through the maize, towards the flattened circle of the crop. They had their scanners out in front of them, sweeping the area for any alien technology, or abnormal energy signatures. The scanners were also filming their progress towards the crop circle, and the viewers saw the area of flattened maize when they entered it.

 

They called for Jackson to come to the edge of the circle so that he could film them scanning the area.

 

[“Jake and Julia walk around the edge of the circle opposite each other, continually recording data from their scanners as they go. They slowly spiral inwards towards the centre of the circle, when they make a discovery.”]

 

The scene cuts to John in his workshop.

 

["John receives a call from Jake and Julia in Norfolk, who are out investigating the alien abduction,"] Tennant tells the viewers.

 

"Doctor Smith," John said into the phone.

 

On the screen, Jake talks into his mobile phone. "Doc, it's Jake; I've got some scanner data that I've uploaded to the server, could you have a look at it and let us know if it's safe to retrieve an artefact."

 

John wheeled his chair over to his computer and accessed the data. "Hmm, interesting... It seems to be inactive, no dangerous chemicals or energy signatures. It's not an obvious weapon configuration... use the usual retrieval protocol and bring it in, I'll have a look at it in the lab."

 

The scene cuts back to the Ferry House Inn at Surlingham near Norwich. "Okay Doc, we'll see you later."

 

In the Range Rover, Julia does an interview to camera. “There’s a small, alien artefact in the centre of the crop circle. It appears to be inactive at the moment, but we don’t take any chances when we don’t know what it is. The Scientific Advisor at Torchwood has reviewed the scan data, and given us permission to deploy the robot to recover the object remotely.”

 

Jake took the recovery robot out of the back of the Range Rover, and held it up to the camera. It looked like an oversized, remote controlled buggy, with fat tyres, and a number of spider-like arms on the front. He put it on the ground, and brought up the control application on his tablet.

 

The buggy zoomed down the track that had been trodden down when they first approached the circle, and with the on board camera, viewers saw it enter the circle, stopping at a metallic pink, rectangular object with curved edges.

 

It was approximately six inches long, three inches across, and two inches deep, and was partially covered by some of the flattened maize. Jake used the multi jointed arms to gently pick up the object, and place it in the flatbed of the buggy. The scanners indicated that it was still inactive, and Jake carefully drove the buggy back towards them.

 

Julia had placed a padded, steel briefcase on the ground and opened it. They stepped back as Jake used the arms again to place the object in the case, before lowering the lid and closing the catch. When the catch closed, air was sucked out of the case, which hardened the padding around the object and holding it securely in place.

 

A final check with the scanner indicated that all was well, and they breathed a sigh of relief, and gave a high five.

  
“Okay then, back to base and we’ll see what Doc has to say about our little find,” Jake said as everyone climbed back into the car for the journey back to London.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

** A disused office building. **

** Central London ** **. 2003. **

** 01:30 ** ** Hours. **

****

 

Privates Stuart Sinclair and Craig Rimmer escorted the Torchwood scientist through the now deserted building, as he pushed the trolley which contained the football sized, intricate wire polygon. They passed their injured colleague, Private Brian Phillips, who was having a field dressing applied to the left, upper chest area by a UNIT medic.

 

They left the building at the rear, through the now destroyed doorway. Sinclair and Rimmer stood guard with other UNIT soldiers, as the device was loaded into a black van and secured with straps. The van drove off, and a number of Scene of Crime officers from the Metropolitan Police, dressed in white, paper coveralls, approached with stretchers to take away the dead terrorists.

 

Across the street, they saw a rental minibus start to pull away, and in the passenger seat, the SAS soldier who had led the ‘official’ assault on the terrorist cell, stared intently at them, as if committing their faces to memory. Torchwood knew about the SAS raid, and had coordinated with UNIT to enter the building at the same time, using the SAS as a distraction.

 

That had been a risky decision, because if it had been anybody other than the SAS, then there may have been many more casualties to join Private Phillips, and not shot by the terrorist, but victims of friendly fire from less well trained soldiers.

 

Their commanding officer, Captain Mace, finished speaking with the Torchwood team, before they climbed into the black Range Rover and left. He walked over to Sinclair and Rimmer, and they saluted.

 

“Alright men, the SAS and Torchwood have left; I want you to support the police in keeping the area secure until they’ve finished cleaning up.”

 

“Yes sir!” Sinclair said with a gentle, Irish brogue, and then hesitated. “Er, Brian sir, is he going to be alright?”

 

“Ah, yes, took a bullet to the shoulder, unfortunately it went just above his body armour. Missed his lung though, lodged in the muscle apparently. He should be fine, now, back to work eh?”

 

“Yes sir, thank you sir.”

 

 

** Unified Intelligence Taskforce Barracks. **

 

** Central London ** **.  **

****

** One week later. **

 

** 12:00 ** ** Hours. **

 

 

Lieutenant Marion Price walked into the mess hall, and looked around the tables, searching for a couple of faces in the crowd of soldiers who were having their lunch. She spotted who she was looking for, and made her way over to their table.

 

“Sinclair, Rimmer,” she called to them, and they stood and saluted. She returned the salute, smiling at them and motioning for them to sit and carry on eating. “Finish your meal men, Captain Mace would like to see you in his office when you’ve finished eating,” she told them.

 

They looked at each other nervously and back to the lieutenant. “Are we in trouble about last week? We didn’t know the SAS would be there ma’am, and Brian gettin’ shot wasn’t our fault.”

 

There had been an investigation, as there always was when a soldier was injured in action. They had been debriefed and interviewed by the Health and Safety Executive officers, and strangely, given multiple choice psychology assessment tests to fill in. The results were in, and Stuart and Craig were expecting the worst.

 

Privates Stuart Sinclair, and Craig Rimmer, stood in Captain Mace’s office, along with a tough looking man in a black uniform and black beret. They were sure it was one of the SAS soldiers that they had seen on the mission that went so badly wrong.

 

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming, please have a seat,” Mace said, indicating the seats in front of his desk. The man in black, continued to stand to the side of Mace with his arms crossed and an enigmatic smile on his face.

 

“As you know, there has been an investigation into the events of the mission to deliver the Torchwood scientist to the suspected explosive device. I can announce that the investigation found no fault with how you performed on that mission, and in fact, I have some good news for you from the results of the assessment test that you took.”

 

Stuart raised his hand to interrupt the captain. “Er, about that sir, I don’t remember that test being part of an investigation before.”

 

Mace chuckled. “That’s because it wasn’t part of the investigation. I’ll let Captain McNab explain.” He looked up at the man in black standing by his side.

 

Andy unfolded his arms, and walked around the desk, to sit on the edge of it. “That test is adapted from the SAS selection process, used to filter out the wheat from the chaff so to speak.”

 

“SAS?!” Craig said.

 

“Yes, adapted from it, I’m using it to identify suitable candidates to join a new unit at the Torchwood Institute…, and I’ve got to say, you two have scored very high.”

 

“Torchwood? That secret agent place?” Stuart said in disbelief.

 

Andy had to laugh at that. “Yeah, okay, if you like, but it’s not really secret…, it’s more…, classified. Do you remember what you saw when you escorted that scientist into the building?”

 

“Yeah, you lot pointin’ Heckler & Koch HK MP5’s at us,” Craig said with a lopsided smile.

 

“Be thankful we were SAS, otherwise we might have been shooting you with those Heckler & Koch HK MP5’s,” Andy said with a grin. “But even in a stressful situation, you correctly identified the weapons being pointed at you, and what about the explosive device, could you identify that?”

 

“Nah, never seen anything like that, some kind of high tech equipment. That scientist said it was something from a spaceship,” Stuart said.

 

“Hmm, and how do you feel about that?” Andy asked.

 

“Don’t rightly know sir,” Craig said.

 

“I’ve not really thought about it before, I mean, I know the military and NASA have reports of unusual sightings on file,” Stuart said.

 

“Well, how would you like to investigate those unusual sightings?” Andy asked.

 

“Wha, for real?” Craig asked.

 

“Yep, I’m offering you a job at Torchwood, if you’re interested.”

 


	8. It ain’t rocket science

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I often wonder how Torchwood recruit staff. This back story is one method of recruitment.

** Chapter 8 **

 

 

 

** British Rocket Group Headquarters. **

 

** Harrogate ** **. 2005. **

 

** 13:00 ** ** Hours. **

 

 

Christine Anderson sat in a comfortable chair, in a hallway of the small country house which served as the centre of the British Rocket Group. She was waiting for an interview with Professor Daniel Llewellyn; Project Director for the Guinevere One project to Mars, and hoped that her work at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, in the Netherlands, had got her noticed enough to secure her a place on the project.

 

The British Rocket Group had been founded in the early 1950s by a number of scientific pioneers. Over the last fifty years they had acted as both an advisory committee to and an active force in the British space program. During the 1970s it worked closely with the Government's Space Security Department with both sharing offices at London's Space Centre.

 

Then, in the 1980s and 90s, with the Government's interest in space exploration at a low, the Space Security Department was closed down and the BRG applied for membership of the European Space Agency. The intrepid scientists had retreated to this small country house in Harrogate and concentrated their skills on developing new tools for the analysis of meteorites, as well as setting up a linked chain of orbital satellites for deep space observation.

 

In 1997, things changed, and with a new Government came new priorities, space travel, and exploration being one of them.

The BRG were recalled to London to advise on the commissioning of a new series of space probes which led, in 2003, to the planning of Guinevere One.

 

A blonde woman walked down the hallway, wearing a smart business suit, and carrying a briefcase. She stopped at the Professor’s door and knocked. While she waited, she gave Chrissie what you would call a professional smile, one that put the recipient at ease and made them feel that everything was good with the world.

 

“Come in,” a welsh voice called through the door, and the woman opened the door and leaned in.

 

“Are we ready then,” she asked.

 

“Yes, would you ask her to come in please?”

 

The woman leaned back into the hallway, and gave Chrissie the professional smile again. “Christine isn’t it?”

 

“Er, Chrissie, yes,” she replied.

 

“Oh, right, Chrissie; please come in and have a seat."

 

The woman held the door for her as she walked into the wood panelled room. A man with thinning dark hair and a full beard, sitting behind an oak desk, stood and gave her a warm smile, which contrasted with the artificial smile of the blonde woman.

 

“Mrs Anderson, please come in and have a seat. How was your flight over?” he asked, walking from around the desk and shaking her hand. “Daniel Llewellyn, Guinevere One Project Director.”

 

“Yes, I know, I recognise you from the ESA news bulletins, and to answer your question, my flight was very good thank you, those British Skyways airships are very comfortable..., oh, and please call me Chrissie,” she said as she shook his hand and sat in the indicated chair.

 

The blonde woman sat in the seat next to her, put the briefcase on the floor, and held out her hand. “Hello Chrissie, my name is Yvonne Hartman; I’m the Director of the Torchwood Institute.”

 

“Torchwood? I don’t think I’ve heard of that one before, is it part of the BRG?”

 

Yvonne gave a bubbly laugh. “Oh no, we’re completely independent of any organisation or government.”

 

“Oh right,” Chrissie said, looking puzzled. She turned to Llewellyn. “So Professor, I’m presuming from the ESA news bulletin, that you are on the final phase of the Guinevere One project…, is that why you invited me for an interview?”

 

“Ah, well, yes, that was the intention. Your credentials are certainly impressive, and your work at ESTEC has been exceptional, however…”

 

“However,” Yvonne continued. “When the director of the Guinevere One project gets excited about a brilliant rocket scientist, we get interested.” She opened the briefcase, took out a folder of papers, and started to read the information.

 

“Chrissie Anderson, Oxford graduate, with a first class, honours degree in electronics in 2000. In the same year, you gave birth to your son Kyle, and in 2002 you achieved a first class degree in engineering,” Yvonne read.

 

Chrissie was a bit unnerved that this mysterious woman knew so much about her. “Someone’s been doing their homework,” she said suspiciously.

 

Yvonne gave her a perfect smile again. “It goes with the territory I’m afraid. Now let’s see, you had a daughter, Olivia in 2003, and are currently in your final year of a doctorate in semiconductor physics.”

 

“So where is this going?” Chrissie asked, wondering what any of this had to do with the Guinevere One project.

 

“Daniel, I wonder if I could have a moment alone with Chrissie,” Yvonne said, giving him her irresistible smile.

 

“Er, yes, of course. Would you like a coffee?” the Professor said.

 

Chrissie nodded. “Milk, no sugar please.”

 

Yvonne shook her head. “I shall be leaving shortly, Daniel, but thank you anyway.” Llewellyn turned and went through the door, leaving them alone in his office.

 

“I’m afraid I’ve enticed you here under false pretences,” Yvonne confessed. “Professor Llewellyn is very keen to have you on the Guinevere project, however, I think I can offer you something far more interesting and challenging to your talents.”

 

“Really, doing what?”

 

“Tell you what, why don’t I let you find out…, see if you’re as good as I hope you are. And as a little incentive, we are in a position to pay for your doctorate, in full, with no obligation.”

 

Chrissie’s mouth fell open. “Who are you, really?”

 

Yvonne stood up and put the file back in her briefcase. “I’m the director of an institute that looks for the best of the best. I do hope we meet again.”

 

Chrissie shook her offered hand. “And how do I find you?”

 

Yvonne raised an eyebrow. “If you have to ask, then you never will,” she said cryptically and left the room.

 

Chrissie sat in silence for a while, mulling over the conversation she had just been part of. She had come here today; full of expectation of joining the team that would put a British probe on the surface of Mars, and answer the question once and for all, of whether there was life on another world.

 

Now she was full of questions about the mysterious woman she had just met. Who was this Yvonne Hartman? What was the Torchwood Institute, and what was the offer that she had mentioned? While she pondered these questions, Professor Llewellyn returned with the coffees.

 

“So Christine, shall we get started? Let me get your file off my desk.”

 

“Er, yes, okay…, and its Chrissie, remember?”

 

“Of course, as you wish, Chrissie. And how was your flight over?” he asked, completely unaware that he had already asked her that.

 

“Are you alright Professor, because you’ve already asked me that,” she said with concern.

 

“Have I, when was that?” he said with a puzzled look.

 

“When Yvonne was here, before you went to get the coffees.” Chrissie wasn’t aware that he was one of these archetypal, absent minded genius professors.

 

“Who? I don’t recognise the name, she must be one of the new secretaries. Anyway, tell me what you’ve been up to in Noordwijk, I hope the launch vehicle will be ready for the Guinevere payload…”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

“Mmmmmmmm, Babe, it is so good to see you,” Dave Anderson said as he hugged his wife and kissed her passionately. He and the kids hadn’t seen her for a week, as she had been in the Netherlands. Her husband had been her rock, during the busy years of study to achieve her academic success and in the raising of their two children. Any ‘normal’ person would have wondered how the hell she even had time to make babies, let alone get not one, but two degrees, and study for a doctorate.

 

“Well, you know what they say about absence and fondness and all that,” she purred, looking forward to going to bed later. “How have the kids been?”

 

“They’ve missed you, of course…, we all have,” he said, stealing another kiss. “But they’ve been great, and your Mum and Dad have loved picking them up from school, when I’ve been giving lectures.” He looked up at the ceiling when he heard noises from upstairs. “Talking of which…”

 

They heard the thunder of footsteps running for the door. “MUMMY!” The five and three year olds scurried down the stairs and leapt into a hug with their mother.

 

“Ooh, I’ve missed you little Munchkins,” she said, holding them under their bottoms while they hugged her around the neck.

 

After a joyous, tearful reunion, they sat down to eat while they chatted away about everything that had happened over the week. After eating, Chrissie got down on the floor and played with her children, revelling in the simple pleasure of being with them. Later in the evening, when she had put them to bed, she snuggled up on the sofa with her husband, and he opened a bottle of wine.

 

“So, what did Professor Llewellyn have to say?” Dave asked her, now it was quiet, and they had a chance to talk. “Did he offer you the position of Systems Director on the Lander?”

 

She took a sip of her wine, slowly looked up at him, and broke into a big smile. “Yeah, I was awesome.”

 

“Hah! Come here my beauty,” he said, pulling her carefully into a hug, so as not to spill the wine, and gave her a kiss on the lips.

 

She thought about the other woman she had met, and about the conversation they’d had. She also wondered about Llewellyn's apparent loss of memory.

 

“Dave…, have you ever heard of the Torchwood Institute?” Chrissie asked.

 

Dave thought about some of the charitable institutions that funded students at Oxford, where he was Senior Lecturer in Chemistry. “I don’t recognise the name, why do you ask?”

 

“Well, I think I met the Director, but Professor Llewellyn couldn’t remember her at all, as though she was a ghost or something.”

 

“Really? You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk unscientifically… Ghosts of all things!”

 

“I know, but it was really weird. Pass me the laptop; I’m going to do an internet search for Torchwood.”

 

She sat up, and started tapping the keyboard, putting in search strings to try and find the mysterious institute, and a straightforward search yielded no results, which didn’t surprise her.

 

‘Tell you what, why don’t I let you find out…, see if you’re as good as I hope you are’, Yvonne had said, offering her the first breadcrumb of the trail that she would now follow.

 

“Okay Ms. Hartman, let’s see how good you are,” she said out loud.

 

“What was that Love?” Dave asked.

 

“Nothing,” she said distractedly as she started searching for obscure references to unexpected memory loss, mysterious blonde women, high tech institutions. It appeared the only Torchwood Institute that existed, was a scientific laboratory that provided support to police and government forensic services.

 

The Torchwood Institute website was a typical commercial website, advertising the services they provided, and how you could purchase laboratory tests, their most popular being DNA paternity tests. It all seemed so normal and above board that it reminded her of tales of UFO sightings and cover ups, and as a joke she typed in 'Men In Black'.

 

“Ho, ho, ho,” she said, as her searches yielded results on a conspiracy website.

 

“What have you found?” Dave asked, looking at the screen.

 

“A hidden website, not in the public domain, hiding behind a firewall. I wonder if I can get in?” she said.

 

“Do you think you should Sweetheart, isn’t hacking a site illegal?” Dave said.

 

She looked up at him and smiled. “But I was invited by the Director.”

 

She started working on the firewall, looking for a way to circumvent the security protocols and find a back door onto the server. After a number false starts, and dead ends, she finally found her way to the Torchwood home page.

 

The screen was a dark blue background, with a white ‘T’ made of hexagons in a white box. To the right of the small box were the name and the words:

 

**TORCHWOOD**

**secure_extranet: log in.**

**/TORCHWOOD HUB/NODE:   01.**

 

In the active window were the words:

 

** TORCHWOOD SECURE LOGON **

**Enter Username And Password:**

 

 

“Now what?” she asked herself.

 

“Well, if you were invited, wouldn’t it be your name?” Dave said helpfully.

 

It was as good a place to start as any, so she typed, 'Christine Anderson', and hit return. Then she thought about the password, and tried to recall the conversation she’d had with Yvonne.

 

‘When the director of the Guinevere One project gets excited about a brilliant rocket scientist, we get interested’, she’d said. Chrissie typed in:

 

'Guinevere One', and pressed return.

 

'Please enter a valid password', the login window displayed.

 

She continued to recall the conversation. ‘Who are you, really?’ Chrissie had asked her. ‘I’m the director of an institute that looks for the BEST OF THE BEST. I do hope we meet again.’

 

She typed in ‘best of the best’, and the login window disappeared.

 

**Status: Live/Examining security protocols_**

**Connected:_TW_01.0_Canary_Wharf_**

**Data Logged_Authorisation_ by_Yvonne_Hartman_**

 

“Well, it looks like I’m in,” she said to her husband, with a certain amount of pride.

 

 

**TORCHWOOD_**

**secure_extranet:Logged_in**

**User: Chrissie Anderson.**

**Position: Guest.**

**Hub node: 2456880**

 

A message box opened, and a message started to type out. ‘Hello Chrissie, glad you could make it. Welcome to Torchwood. Please feel free to look around, and we will talk when you are ready.’

 

Chrissie spent the next few hours exploring the site, looking at mission logs, reports, photographs, and scientific data. She could hardly believe what she was reading. Retro-engineered technology which meant most of the advances in the late twentieth century were due to aliens.

 

Aliens, real, live, (and dead), aliens; how could that be possible? She had just been appointed Systems Director of the Guinevere One Lander payload, to try and prove the existence of extraterrestrial microbial life, and now it turns out that a lot of the equipment she’d been using to do that, had come from extraterrestrials in the first place

 

Eventually, she went back to the home page, and typed a question into the message box. ‘Is this for real?’

 

The message she got back was not what she was expecting. ‘One Canada Square, Canary Wharf. Is 09:00 tomorrow good for you?’

 

“What the hell is all that about?” Dave asked.

  
“I think I’m being made an offer that I’d be daft to refuse.”


	9. Knowing you, knowing me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Rose may no longer be field agents, but it doesn't mean they can't get into trouble. This was a tip of the hat to a genre of film that I really enjoy. (You'll see what I mean)  
> Two more back stories with another method of Torchwood recruitment.

** Chapter 9 **

  


 

“So what is it then?” Rose asked as she looked at the latest artefact that had been brought in by Julia and Jake, looking like a pink, metallic brick, with six small panels, that were flush with the casing.

 

“Not sure,” John said, as he started to scan it with his sonic screwdriver. There was a golden glow, and suddenly, they were standing in the basement store room in Henrick’s, where they had first met all those years ago.

 

“Oh, hello,” Rose said with a puzzled smile. She was wearing her black trousers and pink hoodie, and John was wearing the black outfit with cool leather jacket, that he’d worn when he had the face with the ears and the daft grin.

 

“Hello,” he replied. “It seems that something has propelled us into our shared psyche.”

 

“How did that happen then? I didn’t know anything could do that.”

 

“It must be the artefact; our subconscious minds may have detected a threat and brought us in here.”

 

“Are we in danger John?” she asked with concern.

 

“I don’t think so, it’s a bit like fainting, we’re not really unconscious, just stunned a bit. In fact, I think we’re coming out of it.”

 

“Oh, hang on then, while we’re here.” Rose grabbed the lapels of his leather jacket, and pulled him into a passionate kiss as they were surrounded by a golden light.

 

“Well, that was weird,” John said, and then stopped, running his tongue over his teeth; they seemed to be larger than he remembered. And his lips, they seemed to be ‘poutier’ than normal.

 

‘If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that I’d had a regeneration’ he thought to himself. It was only when he looked down; that he got an idea of what had happened, because he was looking at a pert pair of breasts.

 

“JOHN!” he heard his voice say from beside him. He looked up from the pert breasts, to see himself with a wide eyed look of horror on his face. “What’s happened?”

 

“Rose? Are you in my body?” he asked, looking back at the breasts in front of him.

 

“Oh my God John, this is like one of those sci-fi films where they swap bodies.”

 

“Yeah,” he said distractedly, pushing the breast in from the side, and up from underneath.

 

“John! Will you stop fondling my breasts,” Rose said indignantly.

 

“What?” he said, looking over to his body and seeing a disapproving look on his face. “Oh, sorry, I couldn’t help it. It’s fascinating to find out that you get as much pleasure out of having your breasts fondled as I do… And anyway, you don’t normally mind me fondling your boobs.”

 

“Yeah, but they’re not mine at the moment, are they? I mean they are mine, but I haven’t got them…, oh, you know what I mean,” she said in frustration. “And the question is, how do I get them back?”

 

“Oh, of course!” John-in-Rose exclaimed, slapping her palm against her forehead. “It’s a Teaser ego transplanter.”

 

Teasers are a bunch of spoilt, alien rich kids who take their parents vehicles and fly off to level five planets, flashing the headlights at passing aircraft, drawing patterns in the wheat fields, and pretending to do experiments on unsuspecting locals, they think it’s hilarious.

 

“What, those alien chavs?” Rose-in-John asked. “Is it dangerous?”

 

“Nah, it’s a practical joke,” he told her.

 

“Oh really? They’re crackin’ me up,” she said sarcastically.

 

“I’ve not seen this configuration before, but they’re prime entertainment on a stag do, I must have set it off when I was scanning…, hang on, where is it?” he asked, looking over the worktop.

 

“Where’s what?” Rose-in-John asked, as she put his arm around her shoulders, to look over the worktop.

 

“The artefact…, it’s gone!”

 

“That’s crazy, it must be here somewhere,” she said, as she glanced under the worktop and then leaning over her own body to look under some papers, and behind a box. All this rubbing of his body against hers, had an unexpected effect.

 

“John, why have I got an uncomfortable feeling in the front of your trousers?” she asked, worried that the body transfer may have caused some damage.

 

John-in-Rose looked down and saw a bulge in the front of his trousers. He spurted a single laugh. “You’ve got an erection.”

 

“Wha? But how? I didn’t tell it to do that,” she said, holding her hands either side of his ‘packet’ to emphasise what she was saying.

 

“Ah, no, it will do that all on its own,” he said with a grin. “The trick is telling it not to do it.”

 

“Are you tellin’ me this things got a mind of its own...? That certainly explains a lot.”

 

“Welcome to my world,” he said, as the intercom chirruped on his desk. He walked over, and pressed the ‘acknowledge’ button. “Hello.”

 

“Oh, hi Rose,” Chrissie said. “Is John with you, only the Camera Director, Matt wants to know if he could do some interviews about the artefact he saw recovered?”

 

“Er, I’m here,” Rose-in-John said, pretending to be her husband.

 

“Can we take a rain check on that,” John-in-Rose said. “I’m…; I mean he’s having trouble with his equipment.” He put her hands on his wife’s breasts and gave them a tweak. Rose-in-John slapped her own hands away.

 

“Okay, let me know when you’re available,” Chrissie said and hung up. She walked out of the supervisor’s office to speak to Matt. “I think they’re still trying to identify the artefact, and knowing John, he’ll want to show that he knows everything about it before he does an interview.”

 

 

Back in John’s workshop, they started frantically searching for the absconded artefact. “C’mon, we’ve got to find this thing and reverse it,” he said, getting on Rose’s hands and knees and looking for hiding places. “Ooh, these skirts are a bit impractical when you’re doing stuff like this.”

 

Rose-in-John looked down and saw the skirt of her uniform, up around her thighs, as her bum stuck out from under a desk. “Oh, that’s alright then,” she said distractedly.

 

“What is,” her muffled voice said from under the desk.

 

“My bum really doesn’t look big in that uniform.”

 

There was a ‘bump’ and ‘oof’ from the underside of the desk. “Rose Smith, you’re supposed to be looking for that pesky artefact, not admiring my bum,” he said with a hint of humour in his voice.

 

“My bum,” she reminded him as she looked in various storage containers. “God John, there’s so much junk in here, have you ever thought of havin’ a clear out?”

 

“It’s not junk, it’s all potentially useful equipment, and I know where everything is, I have an inventory in my head… Uh-oh,” her voice said from under a worktop in the corner of the lab, and it wasn’t a good ‘uh-oh’.

 

“What...? What?” Rose-in-John asked with concern, she’d picked up on the fact that it was a bad sounding ‘uh-oh’.

 

Rose’s very nice bum reversed out from under the worktop, and John-in-Rose stood up, holding the grating of the air conditioning duct. “It’s escaped.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

** Cheltenham ** ** , Gloucestershire. **

 

 

Daniel Walton walked from the staff car park, towards the entrance of the futuristic, metal and glass building where he worked as a clerical officer. He passed through the reception area to the security desk, where he emptied his pockets and had the metal detector wand passed over his body. He then held up his ID badge on the lanyard for inspection, before looking into the retinal scanner and passing through the turnstile into the inner sanctum of his workplace.

 

He may have just been a clerical officer in an office, but when your office happened to be in one of the most secretive government institutions, then it took a bit longer to get to your desk than normal. The General Communications Headquarters, monitored radio, video, and telephone traffic from all over the world, and analysed it to see if there was any information that threatened the stability of western civilisation.

 

Danny had performed well at college, and left with a number of A level GCSE’s, with maths, english, and geography being particularly strong subjects. He had completed some work experience in the office of a local firm of solicitors, and made a very good impression on the office manager. When he applied for a job at GCHQ on the off chance, he interviewed very well, and the job reference they had given him was very useful in securing a job.

 

He entered the large open office, and said good morning to a number of his friends who were also making their way to their desks. He sat down and logged on to his computer to read his emails, before looking at the in tray on his desk. His job was to log the report transcripts, and make sure that they were sent to the correct department for analysis. Some people would find the work boring, but Danny was the kind of person where ‘that will do’ wasn’t in his vocabulary. He had an almost obsessive compulsion to do things accurately and to the letter, so that he could say, ‘that is it’.

 

He noticed a white envelope on the top of the in tray, and picked it up to inspect it. It had his name typed on it, and no other information, meaning it must have come through internal mail.

 

“Has anyone else had an envelope?” he asked the office in general.

 

“Yeah, it’s some kind of staff satisfaction survey,” one of his colleagues said, holding up what looked like a multiple choice questionnaire and a return envelope.

 

“Oh, right.” He put it to one side, he might have a look at it later when he had a break. He started trawling through the reports, categorising them by country of origin, perceived threat level, and various other criteria.

 

Before he knew it, his desk neighbour, Jenny, was standing in front of him. “You ready for a coffee?”

 

“Is it that time already?” he asked looking up at her and smiling. “Yeah, you go on and get them, I’ll see you in the cafeteria in five minutes.”

 

“Okay, five minutes,” she said. “No longer, I know what you’re like for forgetting the time when you get involved with something.”

 

Danny laughed. “Right, this is the last report, as soon as I’ve filed it, I’m right behind you.”

 

Four minutes and twenty seconds later, he was sitting at a table with Jenny and a few other people. He’d brought the staff survey with him, and was casually looking at it as they chatted. Apparently, it was an anonymous survey to see how public sector employees felt about working for the government, and if they got job satisfaction and felt valued. The instructions said not to dwell too long on the answers, and just be honest and candid.

 

The first section of questions were about gender, age group, and interests, such as intellectual pursuits like chess, scrabble, sudoku, or more physical activities like skydiving, rally driving, kayaking etc. After that, there were more job specific questions; ‘do you work within the confines of The Official Secrets Act 1989 (c. 6)’ being one of them, to which he ticked yes. There were questions about whether his job was clerical, administrative, supervisory, technical, and so on.

 

Danny was not a fan of multiple choice questions, because what if all of the options were not an accurate representation of his answer. Being a stickler for accuracy, he had a solution to that, he would write his own answer, and tick that instead. It might invalidate the questionnaire, but so what? If they wanted his opinion, they were going to get it, not some psychologist’s interpretation of his opinion.

 

“You’re not putting your own answers in again are you?” Jenny asked, with a lopsided smile.

 

“Too right I am, these are my answers, not what someone wants me to answer for their convenience,” he said with a grin.

 

“I’ve put mine in the bin,” someone said.

 

“I might have a look at mine later,” said another.

 

“Mine’s already gone to the mail room,” said someone else.

 

On his way back from the cafeteria, Danny popped into the mail room and dropped the envelope into the out tray, where it would be delivered to a Post Office Box number at a London sorting office.

 

In the London sorting office, a day later, a motorcycle courier, dressed in black leathers, black crash helmet, with tinted visor, collected the envelopes that had been returned from government departments all over the country. She placed them in a satchel, and left the sorting office, to mount the black motorbike, and ride back to One Canada Square, Canary Wharf.

 

In the Computer Sciences Department of the Torchwood Institute, the anonymous questionnaires were being fed through a retro engineered scanner that looked at the microscopic ink crystals, and decoded the digital information that had been encoded into it. The digital information contained demographic information of who the questionnaire had been sent to, and the name, date of birth, and address was then printed onto the top of each questionnaire.

 

The computers then sorted out the responses into those who were already under the Official Secrets Act, and also into personality profiles, highlighting those that may be suitable for interview and an offer of employment. There was one final category that a few questionnaires dropped into; these were questionnaires that had been ‘spoiled’ by being written on.

 

Instead of being rejected though, these were sent to the psychologists for closer scrutiny, because they were an indication of non conformist, free thinkers, who were not afraid to defy convention to get to the truth. Danny Walton’s cleverly disguised psychometric questionnaire was forwarded on to the head of the Special Operations Unit, where Captain McNab read the psychologist’s summary, and prepared to travel to Cheltenham.

  
Where Yvonne Hartman would conduct interviews for clerical and scientific staff alongside the section heads of each department, Andy conducted his own interviews. If he was going to put his life and the life of his team in the hands of someone else, then he wanted to know he’d got the right person, with the right ‘stuff’.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

** Torchwood ** ** Tower ** **. **

 

 

Alice DiMaggio sat in the glass fronted office, on the top floor of One, Canada Square, admiring the view.

 

The blonde woman in front of her raised her eyebrows and smiled a greeting, as there was a gentle knock on the door, and an elderly man in a dark grey suit entered.

 

"Ah, Dr. Bernstein, thank you for joining us, this is the young lady I was telling you about," Yvonne Hartman said.

 

"Alice DiMaggio isn't it? You've been making quite a name for yourself," he said, shaking her hand as she stood to greet him.

 

"Thank you Doctor and your reputation precedes you," Alice replied. "But I must say that I'm a bit puzzled as to why you wanted to meet me." She had received a very nice letter from him, complimenting her work with Scotland Yard and MI5 as a profiler. It was praise indeed from a man who had been a guest lecturer when she was studying for her degree, and he had asked if she would meet him here for a discussion about forensic psychology.

 

"Oh, that was me," Yvonne said. "You cleverly spotted some of the Doctor's work that we commissioned…, please, have a seat."

 

Alice gave her a puzzled look as she sat down, before Yvonne lifted a multiple choice questionnaire off her desk.

 

"Remember this? It's your response to the government employee satisfaction survey," Yvonne said with a lopsided smile.

 

"Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that. I hope I didn't invalidate your experiment," she said, looking sheepishly at Yvonne.

 

Yvonne gave a single laugh. "Hah! Not at all, in fact, the experiment worked perfectly, and I quote," Yvonne said, reading the written response at the bottom of the questionnaire. "Hey guys, exclamation mark, I'm a psychologist, I can spot a psychological evaluation in my sleep, even if it is cleverly disguised as a satisfaction survey..., unquote."

 

The doctor of psychology chuckled to himself. “I’m the guy you’re saying ‘hey’ to,” he told her.

 

“Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t mean any disrespect,” Alice said apologetically.

 

“No offence taken,” Bernstein said with a smile. “It was refreshing to see someone spot the subterfuge.”

 

“And who could take offence at these credentials,” Yvonne said. “First class degree with honours in psychology after a gap year at the Behavioural Science Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where you met your husband. And when you were awarded your degree, you joined the Criminal Profiling Unit at Scotland Yard, with an occasional secondment to MI5.”

 

“So what was the questionnaire for?” Alice asked, a bit unnerved by the amount of information Yvonne had on her.

 

“Recruitment..., it’s for recruitment,” Yvonne told her with her professional smile. “The Torchwood Institute is looking for new talent, and while you’re here, we were hoping you’d consent to an interview for the post of psychology profiler.”

 

Alice had taken the time to look up the Torchwood Institute before she came, and had seen that they supplied laboratory services to various clients. She had wondered why Dr. Bernstein, a renowned psychologist, had asked her to come to a privately owned scientific laboratory; she presumed that he must be a benefactor of the institute or something like that.

 

“Excuse me, but what does a forensic laboratory need with a profiler?”

 

“Ah, yes, about that…” Yvonne started to explain.

 


	10. Investigative journalism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Rose try to fix a problem without people knowing there's a problem, and Blue Watch go a hunting.

** Chapter 10 **

 

 

 

Somewhere in the miles of ventilation ducts that ran through Torchwood Tower, the pink, metallic brick, that used to have six small panels, that were flush with the casing, now had six, pink, metallic legs, and it was scurrying away like an oversized pink beetle.

 

It had fulfilled its primary function of transferring the personalities of two people in close proximity, when it had been brought out of standby by a sonic device which was scanning its internal components. Its secondary subroutine then kicked in, an evade and hide programme that would prolong the practical joke, and increase the hilarity for all concerned, and with miles of ducting to run through, that would be a very long joke indeed.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

****

John-in-Rose ran over to his desk, picked up the phone, and selected one of the preset buttons. “Hello, Maintenance? This is Doctor John Smith; I need you to isolate the air conditioning from the outside environment.” Torchwood Tower could isolate itself from the outside world in the event of a serious event such as toxic gas, or radioactive dust.

 

“You don’t sound like Doctor Smith,” the technician said on the phone.

 

Damn! “Sorry, this is Special Operations Supervisor Rose Smith, we have a bit of a situation in one of the labs and need to isolate the air ducts while we conduct a search,” he said.

 

“Do we need to go on alert?” the technician asked.

 

“No, it’s not dangerous, just…, inconvenient.”

 

“Okay, I’m closing the external vents now.”

 

“Thank you,” John-in-Rose said, and put the phone down. “We have to go and see Jack.”

 

“I’m not going out there looking like this,” Rose-in-John said. “And you’ve got an erection, how’s that going to look?”

 

“You mean you haven’t got rid of it yet? Look, just imagine your mother slapping your cheek…, hold on, no, that probably wouldn’t work for you. Okay, imagine Margaret the Slitheen farting.”

 

John’s face had a thoughtful look on it, as she had that image in her head. “Oh yeah, that’s got it…, but I’m still not happy about this, what if we’re seen?”

 

“Then they will see the very foxy Doctor Smith, and his very sexy wife,” he said giving Rose’s breasts another lift with her hands.

 

“Will you stop that, it just looks…, wrong.”

 

John-in-Rose took his hand and led the way out of his lab, down the hallway, and to the lift. They waited quietly by the lift doors, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone that passed by. When the lift arrived, the doors opened and a young woman stepped out that John recognised as a forensics technician.

 

“Oh, morning Dr. Smith,” she said pleasantly, and then frowned when his wife said good morning back.

 

Rose-in-John hurriedly pushed her body into the lift and pressed the button for the forty second floor. They stood side by side, watching the numbers above the door count up. John-in-Rose leaned back a little and took the opportunity to look at the back of his own head while Rose-in-John watched the numbers.

 

“Ah, not too bad then,” he said, as he straightened up.

 

“What’s not too bad?” she asked, looking at her own smiling face.

 

“The back of my head, it's not thinning, y'know, no bald spot forming yet.” He watched his own eyes roll, as she gave a single 'tut'.

 

“This is just too weird, lookin’ at my own body movin’ about when it’s not in a mirror,” she said, reaching out to hold her own hand.

 

He looked down, and saw Rose’s hand, which was his hand, on top of his hand, which was her hand, the reverse of how it normally looked. “You’re right, it is weird, but don’t worry, I’ll sort it, and we’ll soon be back to normal.”

 

The lift doors opened with a ‘ping’, and they walked hand-in-hand down the hallway, to Jack’s glass fronted office. John-in-Rose tapped the door with Rose’s knuckle, before opening the door and stepping inside.

 

“John, Rose, what can I do for you?” Jack said, as he looked up from the paperwork on his desk.

 

“Er, well…, we’ve got a little bit of a problem,” John-in-Rose said. “I’ve had to isolate the ventilation system from the outside world.”

 

Alarm bells started to ring in Jack’s head. Why did Rose need to seal off the air supply, had an alert come through Special Operations that he didn’t know about.

 

“What’s happened Rose, are we under attack?” he asked, looking at Rose’s face with concern.

 

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Rose-in-John replied, sitting demurely in a chair in front of the desk. “John’s lost an artefact; it escaped through a vent in his lab.”

 

“John who?” Jack asked as John-in-Rose flumped down in a chair next to his wife, sitting like a typical bloke, left arm leaning on her left knee, and right hand on her right thigh as he leant forward.

 

“Him,” Rose-in-John said, pointing with his thumb. She saw the way he was sitting in her body, and raised his eyebrows. “John, knees!”

 

“Eh?” he said, looking puzzled.

 

“Your skirt has ridden up, your knees are apart, and you’re flashin’ my knickers at Jack.”

 

“Oh, sorry.” He quickly clamped her knees together, and pulled the skirt down to just above her knees.

 

“Is there something you two want to tell me?” Jack said with a raised eyebrow.

 

“We need a team to do a systematic search the ventilation system to find an ego transplanter,” John-in-Rose said, still pulling at the skirt.

 

“What, one of the Teaser devices?” Jack asked with a laugh.

 

“You’ve heard of them?” Rose-in-John asked.

 

“Hah! I’ve ended up naked on many an occasion with one of the Teasers after a night out... Oh no, don’t tell me you’ve been transplanted.”

 

“Yeah, the latest artefact brought in was a stealth model. While I was examining it, I must have accidentally activated it, and it swapped us before running into the ventilation system.”

 

Jack started laughing, he couldn’t help it. “So, you’re John,” he said, looking at Rose; John-in-Rose nodded. “And you’re Rose,” he said, looking at John, who nodded silently.

 

“Hah, this is priceless,” he laughed, as he looked at their disapproving faces. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got to admit, it’s funny.”

 

“No Jack, we don’t,” Rose-in-John said sternly. “And frankly, the sooner we get back to normal, the better.”

 

“Okay, okay, sorry,” he said as he picked up the phone. “Bill, you know Doctor Smith requested a seal off of the ventilation system.”

 

“Let me see…, it was Mrs. Smith, but yeah, is it ready to be switched back?” the head of maintenance said.

 

“Not yet, I need two teams to search the ducting, starting on floor ten; one team goes up, one goes down, sealing off each section until they find an alien artefact.”

 

“Is it dangerous?” Bill asked.

 

“No just…” He thought about how best to describe the effect. “Embarrassing and inconvenient.”

 

“Okay, I’ll get the teams on it now.”

 

“Thanks Bill. Oh, and get them to report to me when they find it would you.”

 

“Will do boss, I’ll be in touch.”

 

Jack ended the call, and smiled at his best friends. Even after all these years, and resigning their positions as field agents, they could still get themselves into these situations. He saw Rose-in-John’s hand reach over and hold John-in-Rose’s.

 

“Thank goodness for that, how long do you think it will take John?” she said.

 

“Wellll,” John-in-Rose said, running her hand through her long, blonde hair and getting her fingers tangled. “Agh, sorry, your hairs longer than mine. Er, there are miles of ducting in the tower, but starting at the epicentre and working out, hopefully they should find it in the next day or two.”

 

“A day or two!? I thought it would be an hour or two.”

 

“It might be, if we get lucky,” he said, trying to comfort his distraught wife.

 

“You could always have some fun,” Jack said. “I remember this one wedding night when I used a transplanter…” He looked at their disapproving faces. “No, maybe not. Look, if you don’t want to be seen, go home and I’ll call you as soon as it’s found, yeah?” he said as he stood from behind the desk.

 

Rose-in-John stood and hugged him around the neck and gave him a kiss. “Thanks Jack, that’d be great.”

 

“Rose, those are my lips you’re using to kiss Jack,” John-in-Rose said in protest.

  
“Mmmm, I know,” Jack said with a grin.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air. **

 

The camera showed footage from inside a vehicle as it approached Torchwood Tower, and then turned to go down into the underground car park.

 

[“With One Canada Square dominating the skyline of the Isle of Dogs, its easy not to realise that there is a lot going on underneath the towering building,”] Tennant explained.

 

[“There’s a car park for employee vehicles, a garage for all the specialist Torchwood vehicles, an automotive workshop, to keep them in tip-top condition, and a warehouse that houses all manner of weird and wonderful ‘stuff’ that has been found over the years.”]

 

The camera pans across rows of black vehicles, and comes to rest on a man in black overalls, with his arms crossed, and an awkward smile on his face that shows that he’s not used to being on camera.

 

[“Jimmy ‘Wheels’ May, is chief mechanic and head of vehicle logistics at Torchwood.”]

 

“Yeah, we have trail bikes, Range Rovers, which are the general purpose vehicles for most occasions, and Subaru fast pursuit vehicles. We then have hummer personnel carriers, for more rugged terrain, and the eight wheeled Mobile Incident Vehicle, which is based on the military Stryker personnel carrier. We also have paramedic ambulances, and a variety of trucks for alien and artefact recovery.”

 

The camera followed him to the back of a Mobile Incident Vehicle, where the rear door was in the lowered position to form an access ramp. On the right hand side, there were rows of flat screen monitors, and a narrow control desk. Opposite that, were a row of seats for the agents that faced the monitors. Above the seats were overhead storage lockers for equipment and weapons.

 

“We’ve just had a call from Special Operations, that they’re off out on a mission and need an MIV, so I’m powering this one up for them.” Jimmy activated the narrow desk, and all the screens flickered into life, and the desk lit up like a Christmas tree. “Ah, here they come now.”

 

The camera panned to the lift, and Duncan led his team of Pete, Stuart, Clive, and Danny towards the waiting vehicle. By his side, was an attractive, dark haired woman, wearing civilian clothing, and Camera Director David Rea.

 

 

The screen split into two in its usual fashion, and Alice rotated to smile at the camera.

 

Name: Alice Dimaggio.

Position: Psychologist and counsellor.

Time with Torchwood: 15 Years.

Likes: Walks in the countryside.

Dislikes: Bad manners.

 

[“Alice Dimaggio is a Torchwood psychologist, and will interview the woman who gave the story to the magazine. It will be her job to break the news to the woman that her mother in law has been murdered, and to tactfully elicit as much information about the deceased as possible.”]

 

“Okay Alice, if you take one of the Range Rovers, we’ll follow you there, and then we can move on to make a capture, while you stay with the daughter in law,” Duncan said.

 

“Yeah, I’ll get as much information for you as I can. A constable from Victim Support will meet us at her house.” She climbed into a Range Rover that Jimmy had indicated, as the Special Operations team walked up the ramp into the back of the MIV, and Duncan climbed into the cab to drive it.

 

 

** Torchwood - In Production **

 

 

** Basingstoke ** ** , Hampshire. **

 

Alice was in the living room of a modest house, on an ordinary street, telling a woman that her mother in law had been murdered by an alien, and that her skin was being used as a disguise. The WPC sitting by the side of her was looking on in disbelief, which is why Alice had come to break the news.

 

As she counselled the bereaved woman, she was also gently gaining information about her mother in law and where she might be at the moment.

 

“After that day, y’know, when I saw…” She looked up and saw the look of disbelief on the WPC’s face. “Well, I never went back to her house…, I couldn’t, I was so scared.”

 

“No, you did the right thing Sylvia,” Alice told her. “If you had gone to see it, your life would have been in danger.”

 

“Dennis has been to visit, but she’s never in. When he phones her, she says that she's out with friends that she met on her cruise.”

 

“Yes, I bet she is, they’re probably aliens as well. We’ll look at the cruise company and find out which ports they stopped at, it was probably one of the ports where the aliens ambushed your mother in law,” Alice said sympathetically, and Sylvia started to sob again.

 

The conversation was being transmitted to the MIV in the street outside, and when Duncan had got an address for the alien mother in law, they set off across town to set up a covert surveillance. They parked the imposing MIV around the corner, and David set up his camera to film the operation.

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air **

 

 

“So, whose turn is it to be the postman then?” Duncan asked as he climbed into the back with the rest of the team and sat in the control chair in front of the narrow desk.

 

“That would be ‘Irish’,” Pete said, handing Stuart (who wasn't Irish at all) a luminescent orange coat, and a baseball cap with the post office logo on them. The screen split into two again, and the left hand pane showed Stuart, in his black uniform, the camera zooming in.

 

 

Name: Stuart (Irish) Sinclair.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 17 Years.

Likes: Cider.

Dislikes: Broccoli.

 

 

“I thought it was ‘Bart’s’ turn.”

 

“Nah, I did it after ‘John Boy’, and before ‘Numbers’,” Clive said.

 

“Oh, that’s not fair, ‘Numbers’ isn’t here,” Stuart said.

 

Duncan rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Just put the damn coat on and deliver the package.”

 

‘Irish Stu’ shrugged on the coat and pulled on the baseball cap as the rear door quickly lowered to form a ramp. He put the post bag over his shoulder, and picked up the book sized cardboard package that would fit through the letterbox of the target house. David filmed him from the corner of the street, as he walked into the distance, before hurrying back to the MIV to film the feed from the ‘spy-fly’.

 

[“Stuart has gone to deliver a surveillance droid to the house, disguised as a postman so as not to alert anyone to the fact that the house is under investigation,”] Tennant explained to the viewers, without giving away any secrets about the surveillance droid and its method of delivery. When the cardboard package fell onto the doormat, a small end panel flipped open, and the ‘spy-fly’ was ready to explore.

 

“Ah-ha… Here we go, we’re online,” Duncan said. “Right, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

 

He flew the droid systematically through the house, and it looked like it had been empty for a while. Wherever the alien was, it wasn’t here. Stuart returned to the MIV, and took off his simple disguise.

 

Duncan slid the chair along the desk and operated the communication equipment. “Alice, this bird has flown. We’re going to need photographs to build a 3D recognition profile.”

 

“Okay Duncan, I’ll ask her to get the photo albums out; standby for a data feed,” Alice’s voice said from the speaker.

 

Duncan turned to David to explain to the camera. “Alice will take a number of pictures with her smartphone, and upload them to the server. Our onboard computers here can take biometric measurements of forehead, width and spacing of eyebrows, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, chin, and produce a three dimensional model of the person we’re looking for. The computer can then compare that model against the thousands of camera images in the country to find a match.”

 

He turned back to the desk, and a number of images of a woman appeared on different screens, where red dots appeared on key areas of the face. A green wire framed head started to build itself on one of the other screens.

 

“I’m also accessing her bank account to see if there is any activity that might indicate where she has gone,” Duncan explained. “Oh, hello, this might be something, ten days ago, she bought a train ticket to Cardiff…, and it was a single journey, no return.”

 

“Heads up, Dunc, it looks like we’ve got a hit,” Danny said, as Google Maps appeared on a screen, zooming in on the Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff Bay. On another screen, was a captured image of the woman they were looking for, taken by a security camera outside the Wales Millennium Centre.

 

“Prescott to Despatch, over,” Duncan said into his headset.

 

“Despatch; go ahead Duncan, over,” Gwen’s voice said from the speaker.

 

“Contact Torchwood Three, and send them this image. Ask them to observe but not approach, we’ll be there as soon as possible to apprehend, and ask Flight to prep the airship, over.”

  
“Copy that, over and out.”

 


	11. Despatching, Training, and Flying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another back story, and more about Torchwood.

** Chapter 11  **

 

 

 

** Dead Man’s Cove. **

 

 ** Plymouth ** ** Ho. 2005. **

 

 ** 14:30 ** ** Hours. **

****

 

Gwendoline O’Toole stood at the safety rail of the sea wall, and read the sign attached to the wall below the rail. “No diving or tomb-stoning, danger of death it says here,” she said to the group of college friends that she had come with.

 

One of the group, Ben, had seen some eleven year olds jump off the sea wall, into the aptly named ‘Dead Man’s Cove’, sixty five feet below. Now, he’d been bungee jumping, and skydiving, and was up for a bit of an adrenalin rush challenge.

                                                                   

Gwen was also no stranger to adrenalin activities, which is why she had become friends with Ben in the first place. But, unlike Ben, she assessed the risks and applied a statistical analysis to each risk before deciding whether to try it.

 

“You’re gonna die!” she told him.

 

“Nah, those kids have done it, so it can’t be that dangerous.”

 

Gwen’s brain went into maths mode. “Hey, kid,” she called to one of the eleven year olds who had leapt into the cove. “How heavy are you?”

 

“I dunno, about seven stone probably,” he said in that sullen way of speaking that pre pubescent kids had.

 

“And how heavy are you?” she asked her rugby playing friend.

 

“About fifteen stone…, why?”

 

“Okay, that kid is roughly forty four kilos; you on the other hand are around ninety five kilos. Acceleration is about ten metres per second, per second, which means you will hit the water at about thirty three feet per second,” she told him.

 

“Hang on, I remember something about physics, didn’t Galileo drop some different sized cannon balls from the Tower of Pisa, and they hit the ground at the same time?” Ben recalled.

 

“Yeah, but the heavier ball makes a bigger hole, kinetic energy is half the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity, which means you are going to have double the amount of energy, and will sink deeper into the water.”

 

“Ah, yeah, but it’s a deep cove, it’ll be fine. And besides, that’s part of the thrill, leaping into the unknown.” He kissed her cheek, and ran to the edge of the precipice and leapt off. He was committed to the leap, because there were a number of eleven year olds watching him, to see if he was a man or a mouse.

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

“How’s your ankle now?” Gwen asked, as she straddled Ben’s waist.

 

“Better after that horizontal jogging,” he said with a grin. “But it itches in this cast.”

 

He hadn’t died when he leapt into Dead Man’s Cove, although Gwen’s mental calculations were fairly accurate, and he had sunk deeper than the eleven year old, and he’d broken his ankle on the rocks on the sea bed.

 

“Well, it serves you right! I’m just glad I’m not attending your funeral and looking for another shag mate,” she said as she climbed off him and started to pick up her clothes off the floor.

 

They had a special friendship, where they would go out drinking and clubbing; go to the cinema and the theatre, and then go back to either’s flat for recreational sex, and then leave. There was no commitment to long term relationships, setting up homes, starting families, just a close friendship, and great sex. Gwen had said it was like he was her gigolo, and she was his hoar, and they didn’t have to pay an exorbitant fee to have fun.

 

She pulled her knickers on, and then her jeans, as Ben admired her fit physique. “Have you got to go?”

 

“Yeah, I’ve got a meeting with my tutor at eleven,” she said as she fastened her bra behind her, before pulling her jumper over her head. She was one of the youngest undergraduates at the Faculty of Mathematics, in King’s College, Cambridge, having won a scholarship for being an absolute genius at maths.

 

“I’ve got to hobble along to a lecture this afternoon,” he told her.

 

“Ah, poor love,” she said with mock sympathy. “Tell you what, cook dinner, and I’ll release some of those happy chemicals in your head again tonight with some more horizontal jogging.”

 

“Hah, that’s a deal. See you tonight,” he said as she went out the door.

 

Gwen sat nervously in the tutor's office, not knowing what the meeting was about.

 

“Don’t look so nervous Gwen, I just wanted to have a chat to see how you feel the last two years have gone, with you being so young when you got here,” her tutor said.

 

She had been sixteen when she entered the college, and it was a bit daunting to begin with, but she soon settled into the student social life, and signed up for all sorts of fun activities that fulfilled her taste for adventure.

 

“It’s been fine, I’m really enjoying myself, and I love doing maths, it just seems so easy.”

 

“Yes, we’ve noticed that you seem to be able to do the course work without putting any effort into it,” the tutor said, with a hint of resentment in her voice. “But what do you hope to get out of your time here with us at King’s? You could really make your mark on the world with your abilities, have you thought about doing a doctorate and becoming a lecturer here?”

 

“I’d not really given it any thought,” she said. “If I did work here, could I still enjoy the student social life?” she asked with a smile.

 

“Er, no, not really.”

 

“Oh, that would be a bit boring then. I’m more of an outdoor sort of person, y’know exploring and going on adventures, skydiving, white water rafting, scuba diving, that sort of thing.”

 

Her tutor smiled at her. “Ah, I’m afraid there isn’t much call for a mathematician in those lines of work.”

 

“Shame…, although I remember in the film, Apollo Thirteen, the astronauts had to do some life or death navigational computations in their head, in a short space of time with no room for error; that was exciting.”

 

“Exciting, but rare,” her tutor said with a laugh. “Have a think about it, and we’ll have a chat later in the year, yes?”

 

“Yeah, okay, thanks.” Gwen stood up and left the office, and her tutor picked up the phone to speak with the professor of mathematics.

 

“Stephen? It’s Beverley, I’ve had a word with our young prodigy Gwendoline O’Toole…; she’s a typical eighteen year old girl who just wants to have fun with her friends, explore the world, and let the future take care of itself.”

 

“Ah, an accidental academic eh? A brilliant mind with no focus, I wonder if my old friend Malcolm Taylor would have any openings for a mind like that. He’s scientific advisor for the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, and has just been appointed Consultant Advisor to some mysterious outfit called the Torchwood Institute,” the professor said.

 

“The Torchwood Institute, I’ve not heard of them before.”

 

“Neither had I until Malcolm told me about his appointment. Apparently, they’re a forensic laboratory and a bit hush-hush, investigating all sorts of mysterious phenomena; it might be just the thing young O’Toole needs to give her some focus. I’ll give Malcolm a call this afternoon.”

 

“That would be lovely, thank you Stephen; I’d hate to see such a mind go to waste.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air. **

 

The screen was split in two, with a shot of Chrissie in her dress uniform, with her back to the camera, which zoomed in, as she turned, crossed her arms, and smiled. In the right hand pane, a number of statistics typed out.

 

 

Name: Chrissie (Brains) Anderson.

Position: Senior Technical Operations Officer.

Time with Torchwood: 15 Years.

Likes: Technology.

Dislikes: Being away from her family.

 

 

[“Whilst his field partner works on the Despatch Desk, Craig Rimmer updates his training record with the Senior Technical Operations Officer, Chrissie Anderson,”] Tennant explains, as the camera shows an apparently normal apartment.

 

“Okay Craig, I think you know the drill,” Chrissie said. “Here’s your scanner, find all the hidden items.” She held out the scanner, and he took it off her.

 

[“This apartment is actually a mock up in the Training Department, in Torchwood Tower. There are a number of different environments set up that agents can practice in.”] As Tennant narrated, the screen split into two as it had for Chrissie, and the left hand pane showed Craig, in his black uniform, and as the camera zoomed in, he gave a thumbs up, and a cheeky smile.

 

 

Name: Craig (Ace) Rimmer.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 17 Years.

Likes: Heavy Metal.

Dislikes: Opera.

 

 

Chrissie was doing an interview to camera, while Craig swept the apartment in the background with a handheld device.

 

“It’s my responsibility to make sure that all field agents keep up to date with all the specialist equipment that we use; hand held scanners, one of which Craig is using at the moment, surveillance equipment, remote recovery systems, satellite communications, and the stun guns.”

 

“Found one!” Craig called from behind her, and she laughed towards the camera.

 

“Only another five to go,” she whispered to the camera. “When he’s found all the high tech devices, we’ll move on to another piece of equipment.”

 

[“Whilst Craig is updating his equipment competency, his field partner Gwen O’toole collects and collates all the incoming data and makes sure that all the field agents have up to date intelligence,”] Tennant tells the viewers.

 

The screen split into two, the left hand pane showed Gwen, in her black uniform, and as the camera zoomed in, she smiled.

 

 

Name: Gwen (Numbers) O’Toole.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 15 Years.

Likes: Logic problems.

Dislikes: Having nothing to do.

 

 

“Prescott to Despatch, over,” Duncan’s voice called over the speaker in the Despatch Office.

 

“Despatch; go ahead Duncan, over,” Gwen replied.

 

“Contact Torchwood Three, and send them this image. Ask them to observe but not approach, we’ll be there as soon as possible to apprehend, and ask Flight to prep the airship, over.”

 

“Copy that, over and out.” Gwen flicked some switches, and the security camera image appeared on a screen, along with the 3D rendered image of the disguised alien. She then selected a direct line to Torchwood Three in Cardiff.

 

“Torchwood Three, this is Torchwood One Despatch, Agent Gwen O’Toole.”

 

“Hi Gwen, its Laura, how are you?” a soft Welsh voice came back.

 

“Oh, hi Laura, long time no see. I missed you at the Christmas party last year.”

 

“Yeah, I nearly missed Christmas all together, what with being injured and all…, but I’m all fixed up now and ready to party for this Christmas.”

 

Gwen gave a laugh. “Glad to hear it! I’ve just sent you some image data, there’s a potentially dangerous alien in Roald Dahl Plass, and a team will be coming over to capture it. Can you keep an eye on it and keep us updated on its location please?”

 

“Okay Gwen, I’ll get the team on it… Speak to you soon.”

 

[“The pyramid roof of Torchwood Tower, is an important feature of the building, enclosing a maintenance plant and housing facilities for water supply, window washing, an airship hangar, and an aircraft warning beacon,”] Tennant explained, as an aerial shot of the roof was shown on the screen.

 

[“The pyramid itself is 40 metres high and 30 metres square at the base. It is made from stainless steel and is held together by 100,000 nuts and bolts, with a weight of over 100 tons. Powerful hydraulic rams allow the roof to open like the petals of a flower, to reveal the fast response, stealth airship.”] The screen now showed the interior of the pyramid, which was a sophisticated airship hangar, with a man in a flight suit, standing in front of the sleek airship with his arms crossed.

 

[“Captain Wallace is one of several military trained pilots employed by Torchwood.”]

 

“We keep the airship in a constant state of readiness, so that we can launch at a moments notice. We not only fly the stealth airship from the roof hangar, but also the Torchwood airships based at London City Airport on the other side of the O2 Arena,” Wallace explained to the viewers.

 

He walked around the airship, giving a commentary on the features. “The power plant consists of two CYBUS CTS800-4N turboshaft, 1,015 kilowatt, superconducting Faraday engines, with vectored thrust,” he said, indicating one of the engines on the side of the fuselage, mounted under the carbon fibre airframe.

 

“This sphere shaped housing or pod under the nose of the airship, supports, and stabilizes cameras and sensors using a gyroscope stabilization system," he explained, as he crouched down under the nose.

 

"The two cameras are a standard ‘day camera’ which is a colour camera equipped with a powerful zoom lens, and a thermal imaging camera. The various sensors can identify a wide variety of solids, liquids, gases, and energies.”

 

He continued his walk around the front of the fuselage. “And this beauty is a variable focus, pure white, Nightsun laser searchlight, which can illuminate a large area, or pick out one individual in a crowd.”

 

The cameras followed Captain Wallace up the door ramp into the airship, which was kitted out in the same fashion as the Mobile Incident Vehicle.

 

“The cameras and sensors are connected to controls located on the desk here where the agents can control them. They are also linked to a recording system and downlink system to the Torchwood server.”

 

As he talked to the camera, Gwen’s voice came over the intercom, and he tilted his head to the side to listen. “Despatch to Sky Hawk, we have a request for a priority flight to Cardiff. Please prepare for departure in approximately one hour.”

 

“Ah, here we go then, you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got to log a flight plan with air traffic control,” Wallace said, as he moved forwards to the cockpit, sat in the pilots seat, and activated the radio. “This is Torchwood One to London City Tower, over.”

 

“London City Tower, go ahead Torchwood One,” a calm, reassuring voice came back.

  
“Torchwood One requesting clearance for high priority, low level flight to Cardiff, over…”


	12. Ooh, I feel like a woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Rose try to act normally in each others bodies. (Well, that was never going to work, was it?)

** Chapter 12 **

 

 

 

John-in-Rose sat uncomfortably in the DeLorian, pulling at the hem of the skirt to try and get it down to his wife’s knees.

 

“John, will you stop pulling at my skirt, it’s supposed to show my knees,” Rose-in-John told him.

 

“Sorry Love, it’s not like a kilt is it?” he said, as he looked over at his own face in the driver seat. His face smiled back at him, but it wasn’t his smile, it was his wife’s compassionate, thoughtful smile on his lips, and in his eyes.

 

When they were in Jack’s office, Jack had called Chrissie in Technical Support Services, and asked her to cover the last couple of hours of Rose’s shift.

 

‘Is everything alright?’ Chrissie had asked, and Jack told her it was just a domestic crisis at home and nothing serious.

 

‘Nothing serious!’ Rose had thought, that was easy for him to say, Jack would probably jump at the chance of getting into a female body and having some fun… Actually, that thought didn’t sound right, it’s a good job she hadn’t said it out loud.

 

They had managed to get to the basement car park without interacting with anyone, and breathed a momentary sigh of relief when the doors of the car lowered shut. The car was now making its way to Tyler Mansion for the next wave of embarrassment.

 

“The kids are gonna realise, aren’t they?” Rose-in-John said, as the car turned onto the tree lined road that led to her parents house.

 

“Er, yeah, as soon as we speak, they’ll realise that thought and speech don’t match the bodies.” Rose’s face then went pale and worried. “Rose, I’ve just thought, what about Jason…, he’s going to want feeding,” he said, looking down at his wife’s breasts.

 

Rose-in-John snorted a laugh at the thought of her husband trying to breastfeed their son. “Sorry,” she said at the indignant look he was pulling with her face. “Couldn’t help it, he can have some baby food until its bed time, and then there’s some expressed milk in the fridge he can have to put him down with.”

 

“Oh, right, not too bad then,” he said, a bit more cheerfully. “I think we can get through this.”

 

The car pulled up at the gates to the Mansion, and Rose-in-John pressed the button to send the signal to open the gates. The car then drove up to the house, and stopped at the steps to the front entrance. The doors swung up, and John-in-Rose tried to get out of the car in his usual manner of one leg first, but found the skirt wouldn’t let him.

 

“Both legs out together, and then stand up,” Rose-in-John told him without looking, she knew he’d forget.

 

He stood at the car and wriggled her body slightly, before smoothing the skirt and tugging the jacket straight.

 

“You look lovely,” she said teasingly as she kissed herself on the cheek. Now they were away from Torchwood, and the scrutiny of their work colleagues, Rose was starting to enjoy herself, in a weird sort of way.

 

“Thank you, now just remember to fist bump Alistair, and I’ll just brush cheeks with him, that’ll be alright won’t it?” he said.

 

“Yeah, I won’t bother with the French kiss and rubbing his crotch today,” she replied, and giggled at the look of disbelief on her face.

 

As they walked up the steps, the door opened, and Alistair stood there, smiling at them. “Dr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, you are early today, I trust nothing is wrong.”

 

"Yo, Alistair my man, how's it hanging?" John-in-Rose said, before trying a too hasty, awkward cheek brush, which turned into more of a hesitant head butt, than a feigned kiss. “Everything’s fine, we just finished early while Maintenance do some work on my…, I mean John’s lab.”

 

Alistair was a bit puzzled by this greeting from his employer’s daughter, as it was normally her husband that greeted him like that.

 

"I'm..., fine, thank you Mrs. Smith."

 

Rose-in-John held up her fist. "Hello Alistair, how are you?"

 

Now things were really odd, well more odd than usual for these two. Were they playing a joke on him?

 

"Er, well, thank you Doctor," he said, bumping fists.

 

They made their way through to the Living Room, where Jackie was giving Jason a bottle of milk.

 

"Hi Jac... Mum, it's us," John-in-Rose said, as they entered the room.

 

"Mummy!" Juleshka called out as she put her crayons down on the colouring book, and ran for a hug. She ran to her father, who was in her mother's body, and he picked her up.

 

"Hello Sweetheart, have you been a good girl for Grandma and Grumpy?" he asked her.

 

A frown furrowed her brow, as she heard her mother’s voice, but felt her father speak. She looked over to her mother, who was in her father’s body.

 

[“She knows John,”] Rose thought to him.

 

[“Yeah,”] he thought back.

 

[“Jules Sweetheart,”] Rose thought to her daughter. [“We’re playing a trick on Grandma for fun. Don’t let on, and we’ll see if we can fool her, yeah?”]

 

[“Brilliant”] John thought to Rose.

 

Juleshka nodded and started to giggle. [“This is fun!”] she thought to them.

 

[“Yes it is,”] John thought. [“But be careful, don’t do or say anything to give the game away.”]

 

[“Okay, I won’t.”]

 

“You two are back early,” Jackie said as the mental conversation went on between them.

 

“Yes,” Rose-in-John said. “Maintenance had to come and do some work on the ventilation in J… my workshop, so I thought we may as well knock off early, and we can pick EJ up from school.”

 

“Oh, that’ll be a nice surprise for him,” Jackie said, rubbing Jason’s back to get him to belch.

 

“Yeah, so, we’ll just get their things together an’ get goin’,” John-in-Rose said, trying to sound like his wife as he sat on the sofa next to Jackie.

 

[“Knees together and why are you talkin’ like that?”] Rose thought to him.

 

[“I know,”] he thought back as he took the offered infant off Jackie. [“I’m talking like this, to try and make your mother think I’m you.”]

 

“‘Ello my little soldier, How’ve ya been for Grandma?” he said in ‘Rose speak’. Even Jason gave him a frown, hearing and seeing his mother, but sensing his father.

 

[“Oi, I don’t talk like that!”] Rose thought at him, indignantly.

 

[“Do too,”] he thought back.

 

“Ah, thought I heard somebody arrive,” Pete said as he stepped into the room. “Knocked off early so you could get ready for this evening did you?”

 

John and Rose looked at each other, at first puzzled, and then shocked. The charity ball for the Republican Children’s Hospital, where they would be handing over a cheque.

 

[“Oh God John, with all this trouble, I forgot all about that,”] Rose thought.

 

[“Me too, we’ll have to cancel, we can’t go like this, it’ll be a disaster,”] John thought back.

 

“Oh yes, the charity ball,” John-in-Rose said. “About that…”

 

[“John, we can’t let Dad down, we are the celebrities handin’ over the cheque, and the children are relyin’ on us for the publicity,”] Rose thought to him.

 

Damn, she was right! At times, being a celebrity was a pain in the arse, ‘even Rose’s very nice arse’ he thought to himself.

 

“... What time does the limo arrive?” he finished.

 

Pete smiled at his daughter… well, his daughter’s body at least. “Nineteen hundred, sorry, I mean seven o’clock… Old habit, drives Jackie crazy, she never knows what time I’m on about.”

 

“Right, seven o’clock it is then, come on wife, Allons-y,” Rose-in-John said in ‘Doctor speak’.

 

[“It’s a good job I’m not Scottish is all I can say,”] John thought to her with a mental grin.

 

[“You are goin’ to get such a slap in a minute. C’mon, let’s get a move on.”]

 

Rose-in-John, picked up the holdall that he’d put all the children’s things in, and held Juleshka’s hand. John-in-Rose, fastened Jason into his carry seat, and picked him up.

 

“So, we’ll see ya later, is Alice still babysitting the kids for us?” John-in-Rose asked.

 

“Yeah, she and Alistair have kindly agreed to stay in and look after them for us,” Jackie replied.

 

They quickly said their goodbyes, and headed for the DeLorian, where Rose-in-John fastened Juleshka in her booster seat and John-in-Rose fastened the carry seat into the middle seat of the car.

 

"Knees together, swing them both in," John-in-Rose said as he swung his wife's legs into the car.

 

Rose-in-John smiled at him and started the car. She drove them to Notting Hill, and pulled up in the street by Eyulf's school, where they waited until they heard the sound of the school bell drift through the air.

 

"Off you go then," Rose-in-John said, and he gave her a questioning look.

 

"Why me?"

 

"Because you're in the passenger seat, and EJ's seat is behind you," she told him.

 

He 'hmphed', and lifted the door. "Knees together, swing them both out," he said as he swung her legs out and stood on the pavement. She could see him from the waist down, tugging her jacket down, and smoothing her skirt. She noticed he couldn't resist having a quick feel of her bum.

 

"Okay, I'll be right back," he said leaning forward to look in the car. The sight that met his eyes was quite disturbing. Rose was sitting there, scratching his crotch.

 

"What're you doing?" he asked his grinning wife.

 

["If you can fondle my tits and my bum, I can scratch your balls... It's quite satisfyin' actually,"] she thought to him so that their daughter didn't hear her.

 

["But, but, you can't do that,"] he mentally spluttered.

 

["Why not? You do."]

 

["I do not!"] He exclaimed.

 

["Yes you do, don't forget, I'm married to ya, I know all yer little habits. You stop fondling my body while you're in it, and I'll stop scratchin' at yer bits, deal?"] She thought at him.

 

He gave a mental 'hmph'. ["Okay, deal... Sorry for fondling your body, it's a force of habit,"] he thought to her.

 

[“Apology accepted, and when I get my body back, you can fondle it as much as you like,”] Rose thought at him, allowing him to feel the yearning she had for him to do just that.

 

He realised how difficult this was for her, and that she wanted everything to get back to normality. “Hopefully it won’t be too long now Love. I’ll go and get EJ, I won’t be long.”

 

He sashayed through the playground towards the school entrance, trying to walk like he thought his wife walked.

 

[“John, loosen up,”] Rose thought to him as she watched his amusing efforts. [“You don’t have to walk like you’re holdin’ a penny between the cheeks of your arse, just relax, and gently swing yer hips.”]

 

She saw him visibly relax, and his gait became more natural.

 

“Hello Rose,” a woman said to him as he approached the entrance. She had a girl about Eyulf’s age in tow. “I haven’t seen you in uniform before, it really suits you.”

 

[“Arghh, Rose, help, who am I talking to?”] He asked her.

 

[“Sarah…”] she thought back. [“Her daughter Holly is in EJ’s class.”]

 

 

“Oh, hi Sarah…, hello Holly; thanks, I must admit, I like it myself,” he said, holding her arms away from her body and doing a twirl. “Oh, here’s EJ now, I’d love to stop and chat, but we’ve got a ‘do’ on tonight, and I need to get ready.”

 

“Of course, we’ll catch up another time.” Sarah moved on, and John-in-Rose waited for Eyulf to approach, holding his hand out for him to take.

 

“Hi EJ, have you had a good day?” he said.

 

EJ frowned, giving his mother a suspicious look. She always called him ‘Sweetheart’ when she collected him from school, and why was she here and not at work, and why did it feel like Dad was talking?

 

“What’s going on Mum…, or Dad?”

 

“Ah, it’s a bit complicated Son…, but quite funny really,” he said with a smile, to reassure him as they walked to the car.

 

[“Says who?”] Rose thought at them.

 

[“Shush you,”] he thought back playfully. “There was this alien gadget at work that sort of switched on, and swapped me and your Mum.”

 

They came to the car and Eyulf looked in. “So you’re Mum?” he said to Rose-in-John, and she smiled with a nod. He looked back at his mother. “And you’re Dad?” John-in-Rose nodded. “Cool! Can I have a go?”

 

“Definitely not,” Rose-in-John said as he climbed into his seat in the back of the car. “It’s bad enough with me and your Dad being swapped, without you being swapped as well.”

 

“So why haven’t you swapped back,” he asked as his mother’s body got in the front passenger seat. It was a typical, five year old, logical question.

 

“Er, the gadget ran away and hid,” John-in-Rose said sheepishly.

 

Their son started to giggle. “So you’re stuck like it,” he observed.

 

“Only for the moment,” Rose-in-John said. “Your Uncle Jack has some men looking for it, and will call us when he’s found it.”

 

“Hee, hee, this is brilliant!”

 

They drove the short distance home, and hurried indoors to avoid meeting any of the neighbours. Eyulf and Juleshka made their way to the playroom in the transdimentional extension with Ricky the cyber dog, while John-in-Rose went into the living room with Jason, and Rose-in-John went through to the kitchen to see what Donna-the-Robot was preparing for dinner.

 

“Hello John, I’ve started to prepare fish in batter with chips, 'cos I know you’ll be goin’ out this evenin’, and would want somethin’ quick.”

 

“Oh Donna, what would we do without you?”

 

“Go hungry half the time I shouldn’t wonder,” she said with a grin.


	13. The Men in Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another back story of a Special Operations Field Agent.

** Chapter 13 **

 

 

 

** M40 Motorway, northbound.  **

 

** Junction 11, Banbury. **

 

 

 

Pete Davies eased back on the throttle of his Moto Guzzi V7 Racer motorbike, as he spotted a black Range Rover with tinted windows up ahead, his heart started to beat faster with excitement and anticipation. Could he finally be on the verge of the biggest story of his life, to expose the biggest conspiracy in British history?

 

As an investigative journalist, he had made many friends and contacts in the emergency services over the few years that he’d been doing the job, and they would alert him to when a ‘shout’ might be of interest to him. He had a Welsh friend named Julie, who worked on the 999 emergency call desk, and this morning, although she wasn’t on duty, a friend of hers had called him with a report of someone going missing in the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire, under mysterious circumstances.

 

He had kitted himself out in his leathers, and set off on the three hour journey to the forest. He wasn’t expecting to see little green men, or alien spaceships; no, he was after the people who investigated the little green men and the alien spaceships; the people who could make people forget; the people who could make a fourteen year old boy so scared, that he never talked about what he’d seen for the rest of his life.

 

Pete’s family lived in the little village of in Llandrillo, Merionethshire, North Wales, and in 1974, his father, who was fourteen years old, went with his father to see if they could help the local police officers who had responded to a call that an aircraft had crashed on the Berwyn Mountain.

 

The Berwyn Mountain Incident was an alleged UFO crash in Britain. It took place on 23 January 1974 on the Berwyn Mountains. Both the Berwyn Mountain incident and the similar Rendlesham Forest incident were called a "British Roswell"

 

A number of unusual lights in the sky were observed, followed by a dramatic shaking of the earth. It was considered possible that an airship had crashed, or a meteorite had impacted. Within an hour, police searched the Berwyn Mountains and were joined by a British Air Force rescue team from Valley on Anglesey. Nothing was found, and all searches were called off at just after 2 p.m. the following day.

 

Scientific evidence indicated the event was generated by an earthquake combined with sightings of a bright meteor widely observed over Wales and Northern England at the time. The Institute of Geological Sciences reported that a magnitude 3.5 earthquake was felt at 8:38 p.m. that night over a wide area of North Wales and as far as Liverpool. It was not immediately identified for what it was, hence the police investigation.

 

However, the magnitude of the shock was such that had it been due to impact, the resulting crater would have been large enough to be easily visible. They concluded that the unusual lights may have been simply the meteor, but may also have included the phenomenon known as earthquake light.

 

It was later alleged by "the UFO community" that a UFO crashed, that non-human bodies were found and that the British Government covered up the event. There were subsequent claims that the area was cordoned off by the military while wreckage was recovered. Also, there were reports that the villages in the vicinity were visited by 'Men in Black'.

 

It was jokingly labelled 'The Roswelsh Incident' by The Sun newspaper. The claim that the area was cordoned off by the military was shown by researcher Andy Roberts to relate to a later event in 1982 when a BAF airship crashed in the area.

 

Pete had been born ten years after the event, and his father never talked about what he'd seen that night. Occasionally, there would be a program on the television about unsolved mysteries and UFO conspiracies, and the Berwyn Mountain event would be dramatised.

 

'What really happened Da'?' Pete would ask him.

 

'It's in the official report', is all he'd say, as though he was afraid of ridicule or being called a liar if he told the truth. And so, Pete had grown up questioning things, not believing proclamations unless there was evidence to back up the claims.

 

At school, this made him popular with a couple of teachers who liked his enquiring mind, but most found it disruptive and annoying in class. He had gone on to college, and studied English, which then got him a job at a small, local newspaper publisher, where he quickly gained a reputation as a tenacious, investigative journalist. He now wrote for one of the more reputable tabloid newspapers in London, and in between the stories that the editor gave him to investigate, he worked on a story of his own. And here he was; a few cars behind the vehicle that may hold the answer to all his questions.

 

It may just be any old black Range Rover with tinted windows, but there again… He would carry on to his destination, and if the Range Rover went in the same direction, and took the same exit off the motorway, then that would confirm it. He stayed a few cars behind the vehicle, and was overjoyed when it joined the M42 westbound, and then the M5 northbound, before leaving the motorway at junction 4, and heading east towards Kidderminster, and eventually Bewdley which was on the edge of the forest.

 

He saw the Range Rover turn off the A456 at Callow Hill, and head up a track into the forest. He slowly came to a halt, and looked up the track, watching the target vehicle disappear into the distance. He pulled onto the track, and slowly followed in the same direction, until he could see a clearing in the trees up ahead, and the stationary, black Range Rover. He carefully pulled onto a trodden track into the trees, and parked his bike. He kept the helmet on to hide his identity if he should be spotted, and followed the track around until he could crawl along behind some ferns, and look at the group of people dressed in black uniforms.

 

‘Hah! Who’d have thought it, they really are men in black’, he thought to himself, as he watched them use a variety of high tech devices as they scanned the area. At one point, he ducked his head down, holding his breath, sure that he’d been spotted. However, when he cautiously looked up again, they were still examining the area of the clearing.

 

He watched them take samples of soil and vegetation, and put them into clear, sealable plastic bags, before putting all their equipment into the back of the Range Rover, and drive back down the track. Pete had a quick look around the clearing, to see if there was anything obvious that they could have been looking for. Finding nothing, he ran back to his bike, and started it up.

 

He quickly retraced his route back towards the motorway, and caught up with the black Range Rover on the outskirts of Kidderminster. He held back, and followed at a distance, intending to follow them back to their base, presuming they had one, whoever they were.

 

On the motorway, the Range Rover driver put his foot down, and Pete was soon doing a hundred miles an hour to keep them in sight. He checked his mirror before overtaking, and his heart sank. There was a yellow and blue Traffic Patrol Range Rover behind him, flashing its lights for him to pull over onto the hard shoulder.

 

“Oh shit!” he groaned as he pulled over and turned off the engine. He swung his leg over the bike and removed his helmet to talk to the officer who had stepped out of the vehicle, put his peaked cap on, and walked towards him.

 

“Afternoon sir… In a bit of a hurry were you?” he said in an authoritative tone.

 

“Er, yes officer, I was trying to catch that black Range Rover up ahead,” he said by way of explanation.

 

“And do you know what speed you were doing sir?”

 

“Yeah, it was a hundred, but that Range Rover was doing a hundred as well.”

 

“And that makes it alright for you to do a hundred does it?”

 

“No officer,” Pete said, taking his press ID badge out of his pocket. “But I’m investigating a conspiracy, and I really need to follow that Range Rover.”

 

“Investigating the next Watergate are you?” the officer said with a hint of humour.

 

“No,” Pete replied without humour, and with a hint of menace. “These people are outside of government, beyond the law.”

 

“Well, if they’re going as fast as you say, our patrols up ahead will soon pull them over. Now, because we clocked you at just under one hundred miles an hour, you’ve avoided a summons to court, and I’m going to issue a fixed penalty ticket of thirty pounds, and three points on your licence.” The officer started to remove the book of tickets from the pocket of his high-vis jacket, when his partner called to him from the vehicle.

 

“Steve, we’re going to have to leave it. There’s a fail to stop pursuit in progress, and they’re calling for extra units.”

 

“This is your lucky day. Your licence plate has been logged, so if you are found speeding again, you will have an automatic summons to court. Please keep your speed down in future sir, and have a nice day.” The officer ran back to the Range Rover, climbed inside, and the engine roared into life before speeding away with the blue lights flashing.

 

Pete put his helmet back on and walked over to his bike. He had lost his opportunity to follow the men in black, and he would make his way back to London at a more sedate pace.

 

Three hours later, he let himself into his apartment, and put his crash helmet up on the coat hook by the door. He unzipped his leathers as he walked along the hallway and into the kitchen / dining room.

 

“Hello Pete,” a man’s voice said from the direction of the table.

 

He froze as he recognised the man sitting at the dining room table, who was wearing a black uniform and beret. He had seen him three hours earlier, with a group of other people dressed in black uniforms.

 

“What the…? Who the hell are you?”

 

The man smiled and stood up, holding out his hand. “Captain Andy McNab, one of the people you’ve been searching for.”

 

“How did you get in here?” Pete asked him.

 

“Through the door of course,” Andy said with a smile.

 

“Wha’? Without setting off the alarm?”

 

“Obviously.” Andy gave him a grin. “I hope the Traffic Patrol didn’t have time to give you a ticket before they had to rush off.”

 

“Er, no…, they had to… Hang on, how did you know…?” Pete was getting very uneasy. This man seemed to be manipulating him, and events around him.

 

Andy still had his hand out, ready for Pete to shake it when he was ready to. “I’ll get straight to the point, I was hoping that you’d take us up on our invitation this morning to come and have a look at us and see what we get up to,” he started.

 

“Invitation? What are you talking about, who are you people?”

 

“The phone call from Julie’s friend..., it was from a Torchwood operative.”

 

“Torchwood?”

 

“Yep, the Torchwood Institute, founded by Queen Victoria in 1879, to protect the British Empire from the threat of aliens. And can I just say, that I’d like to apologise for the way they treated your father, I’ve changed the operational procedures since I joined, and we don’t handle cases that way any more.”

 

At the mention of his father, and the apology, Pete finally shook Andy’s hand. “So, what’s all this about then?”

 

“We know you’ve been investigating us for some time now, we have automated spy bots on the web that monitor key search strings. Your account kept getting a hit time after time.”

 

“You’ve been spying on me?” Pete asked in amazement.

 

“Well, you’ve been trying to spy on us! So this morning, I wanted to see if you were really committed to investigating us by getting you to follow us all the way to Worcestershire.”

 

“And now that you know I am, what happens next, do you wipe my memories…, kill me?”

 

Andy smiled at him. “No, we don’t wipe memories unless we have no other options, and we certainly don’t kill innocent members of the public.”

 

“So why are you here then?” Pete asked suspiciously.

 

“A couple of reasons; firstly, I wanted to give you some answers to questions you’ve been asking for years… Questions about the Berwyn Mountain Incident, and what your father saw that night.”

 

“You know what happened?” Pete said in surprise.

 

“Yeah, I pulled the file and read it when I found you were from Llandrillo. I figured that was the driving force behind your enquiring mind.” Andy paused and took a breath before continuing.

 

“At 20:38, on the 23rd of January 1974, an alien space craft got into difficulty and attempted an emergency landing, crashing into the side of the mountain.”

 

“Hang on,” Pete said, pulling him up on the story. “If it crashed, where was the crater, because it caused a 3.5 magnitude earthquake?”

 

“Yeah, I wondered that, but according to our scientists, the energy shield that protected it from the heat of entry into the atmosphere, also protected it from the impact, dissipating the kinetic energy into the ground, leaving no crater, and the craft intact.”

 

“Intact! Are you telling me there was an actual flying saucer on the ground? Why didn’t anyone see it?” Pete asked in disbelief.

 

“They did,” Andy said quietly. “Torchwood dispatched a clean up team, supported by troops from UNIT, and everyone forgot what they saw. UNIT took the craft away to a secure warehouse, and when the police and government scientists investigated the incident, they found nothing.”

 

“And what about my father? He didn’t forget, did he?” Pete asked, with a hint of sadness and anger in his voice.

 

“No, and I am sorry for that. Your grandfather must have protected him, saying that your father had stayed at home that night, because his memory wasn’t wiped. He’d seen the people who were there that night, forget what they’d seen when they talked to the men in the black uniforms, and must have been terrified that if he said anything, then he would lose his memory as well.”

 

“And so he kept quiet, all these years.”

 

“Yeah, and when the story wouldn’t die, and people kept stating that they'd seen troops all over the place, the Ministry of Defence decided to muddy the waters by having a BAF test pilot crash a decommissioned military airship into the mountain, ejecting before impact. They sent troops to secure the crash site and recover the wreckage, effectively ‘blending’ the two incidents into one.”

 

“That’s very clever, create a smoke screen and the incident fades into folklore and conspiracy theory,” Pete said, nodding his head in understanding.

 

“Yeah, that’s the way we operate now, throwing out misinformation and a number of feasible possibilities, and let the public make up their own story,” Andy said with a laugh.

 

“And why are you telling me this?” Pete asked nervously. He now knew too much about this mysterious and obviously powerful organisation.

 

“Ah, yes, well that’s the second reason I’m here; we’d like to offer you a job.”

 


	14. Mermaid Quay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunt is on as the Torchwood team head for Cardiff.

** Chapter 14 **

 

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air **

 

Exciting, drum laden music played, as the MIV zoomed back to Canary Wharf. Internal cameras showed Duncan driving and the team in the back preparing all their equipment for a hostile alien capture. Archive footage of an MIV travelling at speed down a main road, with blue lights flashing, and sirens blaring, was edited in to the scene.

 

David Rea was sitting in the front passenger seat, filming Duncan.

 

“We are making our way back to base, where we can take the airship over to Cardiff to apprehend the suspect. The Cardiff team are keeping an eye on the suspect for us, so that we can plan a quick and effective mission,” Duncan said.

 

The MIV drove down the slope into the underground garage, where the team quickly jumped out of the vehicle with their gear, and ran to the lifts with the camera jogging along behind them.

 

[“The Special Operations Unit has a ‘bullet’ lift which takes them either to the third floor, or to the roof. Today they will be going directly to the roof hangar,”] Tennant said.

 

In the lift, the team members joked and chatted as they normally did before a potentially dangerous mission; it helped to ease the tension and stay calm. Alice DiMaggio had told them that a dark sense of humour was a healthy release for stress before and after a mission, and they embraced the concept with enthusiasm.

 

David Tennant explained the operation of the lift that the agents were travelling in. [“The ‘bullet’ lift travels so fast, that it builds a pressure wave in front of it. Powerful air pumps on the roof suck air out of the lift shaft to form a partial vacuum to allow a rapid ascent, and pumps in the basement allow a rapid descent.”]

 

The lift doors opened, and the city of London could be seen in front of them, as the triangular walls of the pyramid had been lowered in preparation for take off. The camera followed the team as they ran over to the airship and up the ramp into the cabin, where they strapped themselves into the seats. Outside the airship, Camera Director Will Hustler filmed the airship as it rose vertically to clear the roof, rotate to the west, and then accelerate away as Captain Wallace opened the throttle.

 

[“During the thirty minute flight, Duncan contacts his colleagues in Cardiff, and starts to plan the mission.”]

 

“Torchwood Three, this is Duncan Prescott in Sky Hawk, over,” Duncan said into his head set.

 

“Hello Duncan, this is Laura in the Hub. Gwen has apprised us of the situation, and I’m sending you the video feed of your suspect, over.”

 

On one of the screens, a group of six people could be seen sitting around a table in a bright, glass walled restaurant, with the suspect highlighted by the computer software.

 

“Good work Laura, that’s our alien. Where is this restaurant?”

 

“It’s on the pier in the bay. We’ve discretely closed the walkway to prevent anymore people from entering the restaurant, and we’ve got a man in there drinking coffee and feeding us information.”

 

“Has he managed to find out anything?”

 

“Oh yes, we’ve been busy while you’ve been travelling. All six people at the table are interacting socially as though they’ve know each other for a long time,” Laura told him.

 

“So they could be family?” Duncan said, remembering what John and Rose had told him about their universe’s version of the aliens.

 

“Yeah, I suppose they could. The local police have cleared an area on the roof car park of Mermaid Quay so that you can put down; it’s a short walk past Cafe Rouge to the pier.”

 

[“Duncan looks at the map on the screen and sees where the airship will land,”] Tennant said.

 

“The building of the Cafe Rouge, should mask the airship if we approach from the north, can we do that Captain?”

 

“Roger that Duncan, adjusting the flight plan now,” Wallace said.

 

“Good, that means we can make a covert entrance to the restaurant and control the situation. Bart and John Boy get your body armour off, you're going into the waiting trade,” Duncan said with a grin.

 

“Wha?” they replied, together.

 

“Laura, can you get your man on the inside to have a word with the manager? Tell him he’s got two new waiters coming on shift,” Duncan said into the radio.

 

“Ah, I see what you’re up to. Okay, consider it done.”

 

The airship approached Cardiff to the north of the city, and banked to head south towards the bay. The external cameras showed the city from above, as they descended towards the landing area, where a police patrol car and two officers were waiting.

 

[“The team are now approaching the landing site, and during the flight, Duncan selected a preset mission profile, and allocated roles for each of the members of the team. This is similar to an American football team selecting a particular play, which is used to move the ball down the field. The agents have looked over the floor plans of the restaurant, and know the location of the suspect and her five accomplices, exits, kitchens and storage areas. In effect, they know there is no where for the suspects to run where they can’t get them.”]

 

The airship touched down, and the door dropped down to form the ramp. All the seat harnesses sprung open as one, and the team leapt to their feet, following Duncan down the ramp onto the roof car park. The two police officers were walking towards Duncan; one of them was carrying some clothing bags.

 

“You must be the Torchwood lot,” the officer with the clothes bags said. “Someone called Laura said you’d be needing these.”

 

Clive and Danny took the bags and unzipped them to find black trousers, white shirts, and a small apron; it was their waiters' uniforms.

 

“Right, go and get changed, and we can get this show on the road,” Duncan said, before turning to the police officers. “Duncan Prescott, Special Operations, I wonder if we could impose on you to supply a van to contain our suspects? We thought there was only one when we set off, but it looks like there’s half a dozen of them.”

 

“Hang on, I’ll just get on the radio and call for back up,” one of the officers said, reaching into the patrol car for the handset.

 

“Hey, how do we look?” Danny called out a few minutes later from the top of the airship ramp where they’d changed out of their black uniforms. The screen split into two, and the left hand pane showed Danny, in his black uniform, the camera zooming in as it usually did.

 

 

Name: Danny (John Boy) Walton.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 15 Years.

Likes: Bugs Bunny (a cool dude).

Dislikes: Romantic movies (they make him cry).

 

 

Clive was fastening the cuffs on the sleeves of the crisp, white shirt, as the screen split into two for him, and the left hand pane showed him in his black uniform, and the camera zoomed in again.

 

 

Name: Clive (Bart) Simpson.

Position: Special Operations Field Agent.

Time with Torchwood: 16 Years.

Likes: Football.

Dislikes: Confidence tricksters.

 

 

“You two sweethearts look lovely…, now get over there, and start waiting on tables,” Duncan said with a laugh.

 

The two agents laughed and made their way to the corner of the car park, where they descended the metal steps onto Stuart Street.

 

David Rea filmed them walking across the road and disappearing from view between the Cafe Rouge and the Woods Brassiere. He then turned to film the rest of the team walking towards him, carrying their helmets and stun guns.

 

“You’ll have to stay outside for this one David; it could get a bit messy in there. The building is mainly glass though, so you should be able to film what’s going on, and you’ll have the audio from our intercoms,” Duncan told him, before descending the stairs onto the street.

 

They stood on the street and waited for traffic to pass, before crossing the road, when they saw a white police van turn the corner out of Adelaide Street onto Stuart Street.

 

“Ah, here we are, the cavalry has arrived,” Duncan said. “Just hang on a minute while I have a word.”

 

The officer driving the van wound down the window. “Blimey, it looks like you lot are expecting trouble.”

 

“Nah, we just like to be prepared…, can I have a look in the back?” Duncan said.

 

“Er, yeah, if you like…, but it's just a standard security cage.” The officer climbed down and walked to the back and opened the door. “There you are, a mobile police cell,” he said as he opened the cage.

 

Duncan reached into one of the pouches on his utility belt, and held up a weird looking handheld device with wires and knobs on it, and a bell…, and a whistle. ‘Is John taking the Mickey or what?’ Duncan thought before switching it on and putting it in the cage.

 

He recalled the conversation he'd had with John when he gave him the gadget. ['Before you go and apprehend the suspect, switch this on and leave it in the holding cell..., just in case.']

 

['In case of what?']

 

['Oh, nothing..., much..., really. It's just a precaution.']

 

“Just keep that locked until we get back will you,” he said to the officer, before leading his team towards the restaurant.

 

Clive and Danny approached the short pier walkway, and saw a workman wearing overalls, who they presumed was from Torchwood Three.

 

“Er, excuse me sirs, we’re just doing some work on the walkway, should be done in half an hour or so,” the workman said.

 

Danny discreetly took his ID out of his pocket and nodded to it for the workman to look at. “Torchwood One; hopefully it will be less than half an hour.”

 

The workman grinned at them. “Good luck, our man is in the corner nearest the door reading a newspaper.”

 

Clive and Danny nodded in acknowledgment, and set off for the restaurant. As they arrived at the restaurant and went inside, they nodded at the Cardiff agent sitting in the corner, before going through to the kitchens.

 

"You're the manager, yeah?" Danny asked a man in the kitchen.

 

"Yes, will someone tell me what's going on?" he asked, with a certain degree of fear and frustration.

 

"In a word... No! But you'll get an idea pretty soon," Danny told him. "When it kicks off, some customers and staff will be directed through here, just follow the instructions that our people give you."

 

"How will I know your people?" the manager asked.

 

Clive and Danny looked at each other and laughed.

 

"Trust me, you'll know," Clive said. "Now, can I have six cups of vinegar please?"

 

The manager was so flabbergasted by these apparently loose cannons, that he didn't question it, he even put milk and sugar on the tray.

 

"Danny and Clive ready to go, standing by, over," Danny said quietly into the air. His sensitive in-ear communication unit relayed his message to the rest of the team.

 

Duncan's voice replied in their ears. "Okay, start the distraction, and we'll move in, over."

 

"Roger that, it's show time!" Danny said, and moved into the restaurant, heading for the suspects table.

 

"Six drinks for table three," he said cheerfully, putting the tray in the middle, next to the small flower arrangement.

 

"Oh, but we didn't order drinks," one of the suspects said. Another of the group looked at the cups of vinegar and cautiously sniffed at it, recoiling in horror.

 

“But this is vinegar!” he exclaimed.

 

“Yeah, best balsamic,” Danny said with a smile. “I thought it was a bit strange myself, but if you’ve got a taste for it...”

 

“A TASTE FOR IT?” one of the group said in disbelief.

 

“You idiot!” Clive said behind him. “I said ‘they hate vinegar’, not ‘they’ve got a taste for vinegar’. It interferes with their calcium metabolism, makes them explode.”

 

“What?!” one of them said.

 

“What did you say?” another asked, as the group suddenly became alert to danger.

 

“Isn’t it like putting vinegar on bicarbonate of soda? Only in your case it doesn’t froth, it explodes,” Clive said menacingly.

 

“Who are you?” the mother in law asked them.

 

“Torchwood,” an electronic voice from Duncan’s helmet public address system said from behind them.

 

The group jumped to their feet, knocking over chairs. Clive drew his stun gun and guided customers and staff into the kitchens. Danny covered the side entrance nearest to him, as Stuart came through the opposite door, kitted out in full body armour and helmet. The Cardiff agent emptied the restaurant through the main entrance, leading them down the short pier, as Pete came through and blocked off that line of escape.

 

“This is a bit excessive for a group of pensioners isn’t it?” the mother in law said.

 

“You are under arrest on suspicion of six counts of murder, failure to register your arrival on a level five planet, and living on a level five planet without a permit. You have the right to remain silent; it may harm your defence if you do not mention now, something that you later rely on in court; anything you do say can and will be used in evidence, do you understand the caution?” Duncan said, pointing a stun rifle at the group.

  
“Perfectly,” the mother in law said, as the group touched watches, pendants and brooches, and promptly disappeared.

 


	15. Putting on the Ritz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they get ready to go out, John gains an insight, and an appreciation of what Rose goes through to look gorgeous.  
> Alice has some news for them.

** Chapter 15 **

 

 

 

John and Rose were in their bedroom, making preparations to go to the charity ball for the children’s hospital. They’d had a shower together, with Rose-in-John insisting on rubbing the shower gel on her own body. She didn’t want to give her husband the opportunity to fondle her breasts again without her being in there.

 

They stood in their towelling bath robes, and Rose-in-John had helped John-in-Rose to put a towel turban on her head.

 

“So, you’ll be wearing my dinner suit and black tie,” he said to her. “But what do you want me to wear?”

 

“To be honest, I’d like you to wear my ‘onesie’, but I don’t think that would look good on the publicity photographs,” she said with a laugh. “Let me get your suit on, and then I’ll help you get ready.”

 

She knew that throwing on his suit and putting some gel in his hair would be a lot quicker than the work she’d have to do to get her own body ready to go out. She quickly got dressed, and realised that tying the bowtie was back to front when you were tying it for yourself.

 

“Having problems?” John-in-Rose asked her.

 

“Yeah, it’s all back to front.”

 

“Come here, let me do it.” He went over to her and looked at his own body. He scrubbed up really well in that suit he thought to himself, and then realised that tying the bow tie was back to front for him, when you weren’t tying it around your own neck.

 

“Here, come and sit on the stool at the dressing table and I’ll reach around.”

 

Rose-in-John sat on the stool, and watched in the mirror as she saw herself reach around from behind and tie the bow tie as though her husband were tying it on himself. Within seconds, it was on and straightened.

 

"Thanks for that Love," she said as she stood up. "Now, come and sit here and I'll get you ready."

 

John-in-Rose sat on the stool and looked at the reflection that belonged to his wife. She unwrapped the towel from his head and rubbed the blonde locks, before picking up a brush and the hair dryer. He watched in silent fascination as his wife teased those golden locks, and bent them to her will. It was like watching a sculptor create a work of art on his head, and when she had finished, he had her hair arranged up on his head, with two ringlets either side, framing her gorgeous face.

 

"There ya go, that's the hair done, now let's start on the face," she said with a satisfied smile.

 

She put some blusher on her cheeks, and applied a small amount of blue eye shadow, which would match the dress. She applied some mascara and finally, brushed on some lipstick. While all this was going on, John-in-Rose just sat there, amused by the look of concentration on his own face.

 

"Okay then, let's get you dressed." She stood him up and he took off the bathrobe.

 

"Knickers first," she said, handing him something that he considered to be dental floss. He turned them over, and over, and over again, working out which holes his wife’s legs went through, and which one went around his wife’s waist.

 

Eventually he got her thong on the right way up and she couldn't help but giggle at the expression on his face.

 

"Blimey, it's like having a piece of string up your bum," he complained.

 

"Welcome to my world, now you know how we suffer for fashion and beauty," she said. "Now let's get the dress on."

 

"Hang on, don't I get a boulder holder?" he enquired.

 

She rolled her eyes. "You're wearin' a low cut, backless evenin' gown, a bra's gonna look great with that."

 

John-in-Rose groaned at the thought of having to wear a sexy dress, as Rose-in-John picked up the iridescent, electric blue dress off the bed.

 

"Here ya are, step into this, and wriggle my bum into it."

 

He did as he was told, and she worked the dress over her hips and bum, up to her waist. The dress fastened behind the neck in a halter neck style, and the ‘bolder holder’ as he called it was built into the design of the dress.

 

“Ah-ah, I’ll do the adjustments if you don’t mind,” Rose-in-John told him as he went to maneuver her boobs into the cups. “There, how does that feel?”

 

“Drafty,” he said, looking over his shoulder in the mirror to see the expanse of flesh on view.

 

“Don’t worry, there’s a shawl to go around your shoulders. Can you see how the thong means there’s no VPL?” she asked as he stood side on to the mirrored wardrobe.

 

“VPL?” he questioned.

 

She sidled up to him and purred sexily. “Visible panty line, it makes it look like you’re not wearin’ any knickers.”

 

“I’m not; I’m wearing dental floss!”

 

She burst out laughing as she went over to her jewellery box on the dressing table. “Now for the finishing touches, there’s the diamond necklace, bracelet, and earrings.” She put the jewellery on her body, and stood back to admire the finished package.

 

“Y’know Rose, this has given me a whole new appreciation of how much work you put into looking fantastic. I mean, you always look beautiful, and you’re always gorgeous, but this is just…, fantastic.”

 

“Ahh, come here you.” She took her own face in his borrowed hands, and kissed her husband on her lips.

They opened their eyes, and with their lips still locked together, they looked at each other. They slowly broke away from the kiss and looked at the puzzled, disturbed expressions on their faces.

 

“That was weird,” Rose-in-John said, licking his lips with his tongue. “That felt wrong… like I was kissin’ Mum or somethin’.”

 

“Yeah, I often wondered what it felt like when I kissed you, but that was…, disturbing. I mean, I’m a man; okay I’m in a woman's body, but I’m a man, kissing a man’s lips; okay, they’re my lips, but still…”

 

“I won’t be tryin’ that again until I’m back in there,” she said, nodding at her own body.

 

“Deal!” he agreed. “But the hugging felt alright, and the hand holding still has that familiar tingle.”

 

Rose giggled. “Huggin’ and hand holdin’ it is then. So, there are only the shoes, and you’re ready to meet your public.”

 

She handed him the matching, stiletto heeled shoes, and he put them on.

 

“Ooh, I feel a bit wobbly in these Love,” he told her, putting her arms out to balance as he walked forward.

 

“You need to keep the heels directly under your centre of gravity, take little semi circular steps…, oh and you can sashay when you’re wearin’ an outfit like that.”

 

“With this string up my bum, that’ll be a piece of cake.”

 

“Here, take my arm as though we’re walking into the ball together, and you can practice.”

 

“I should be alright, with superior Gallifreyan reflexes and balance, how hard can it be?” he said cockily.

 

It turned out it could be very hard, especially when those superior Gallifreyan reflexes and balance were in the other body. They walked up and down the bedroom, arm in arm, until John-in-Rose felt confident enough to walk on his own.

 

“There ya go, now yer gettin’ it,” Rose-in-John said. “Let’s go down now and get ready to go.”

 

Rose-in-John went down first, with John-in-Rose holding on to the handrail, and coming down sideways, taking one step at a time.

 

“I hope this ball is on the ground floor, otherwise I’m stuffed,” he said with a grin.

 

“There might be some steps, but you can hang on to my arm if you need to.”

 

“Oh Dad, you look brilliant,” EJ said with a cheeky grin, as John-in-Rose tottered into the living room.

 

“Thanks for that Son, I think I’m getting in touch with my inner Donna,” he said, returning the cheeky grin. “Come on then, let’s go to the TARDIS and fly to the Mansion.”

 

Both John and Rose thought that it would be easier to travel in the TARDIS, and there was less chance of bumping into neighbours, and the kids could go to bed in their own bedrooms when it was bedtime. Rose-in-John put Jason into his carry seat, and EJ picked up the holdall. John-in-Rose would need his hands free to make it down to the basement where the TARDIS was parked.

 

They made the short hop to the Tyler Mansion, and stepped (and tottered) out into the living room.

 

“Hi Sis, hi Bro,” Tony said from the sofa, where he was watching his favourite Space Patrol show. “Mum and Dad said to tell you that they’ll be down soon.”

 

[“Hi lil’ Bro is how I usually say hello,”] Rose-in-John thought to her husband.

 

“Hi lil’ Bro,” John-in-Rose said in return.

 

Rose’s best friend, Alice DiMaggio came through the door with her lover, Alistair. “Oh Rose, you look absolutely gorgeous in that outfit, doesn’t she Al?”

 

They kissed cheeks in greeting, and then Alice looked at Alistair, as though she wanted to say something, but wanted his support. She reached down and held his hand, and he squeezed it in support.

 

“We wanted you to be the first to know,” she said with a beaming smile.

 

“Know what?” John-in-Rose asked, but his wife already knew.

 

“I’m pregnant!”

 

What Alice and Alistair saw next, baffled them, as they saw John put his hands to his mouth, and let out a squeal of delight. He then put Jason’s carry seat on the floor, and ran forwards to hug Alice, rubbing and patting her back, before hugging Alistair, and then hugging Alice again.

 

“Oh, that’s brilliant! When did you find out? How far along are you? When’s it due? What do you want, a boy, or a girl?” She fired a barrage of questions at her.

 

They saw a lopsided smile on Rose’s face, as she leaned forwards and kissed Alice on the cheek, and then shook Alistair’s hand. “Congratulations, you old scoundrel you,” John-in-Rose said.

 

“Er…, Rose, is there something you want to tell us?” Alice asked suspiciously. She was a psychologist by trade, although she didn’t need that skill to see that something wasn’t right.

 

John-in-Rose looked over to the sofa, to see if Tony was in earshot, but he was engrossed in the TV show, along with Eyulf and Juleshka.

 

“There was an accident in my workshop earlier today with an artefact, it transplanted our egos into each other’s bodies,” he told them.

 

“Oh my God, are you alright?” Alice asked.

 

“Yeah, we’re fine…, well, not too bad…, well…” John-in-Rose said, holding his wife’s hands out and looking down at her very nice cleavage.

 

“I thought you were playing a joke with shimmers or something,” Alice said.

 

"Shimmers! Oh my God John, we could have used shimmers to make us look like ourselves," Rose-in-John said. "Why didn't we think of that?"

 

"Think of what?" Pete asked as he entered the room. Before they could concoct a reply, Jackie walked in behind him.

 

"Oh Sweetheart, you look beautiful," she said to what she thought was her daughter.

 

"Wha', this lil' old thing? It's just somethin' I threw on," John-in-Rose said, winking at his wife.

 

Rose-in-John saw him attempt her teasing smile, where her tongue poked between her teeth, only it looked like she was poking her tongue out at Jackie.

 

["Er, you haven't quite got the hang of that smile John,"] she thought to him.

 

["What smile?"] He thought back, which caused her to unsuccessfully stifle a giggle.

 

“So, what was all the squealin’ about?” Jackie asked.

“Oh, that was… Rose,” Alice said honestly. “When I told her I was pregnant.”

 

“Pregnant! Oh Alice, love, that’s wonderful,” Jackie said, reaching out and hugging her.

 

“Hah! That’s brilliant,” Pete said, giving Alistair a friendly slap on the back. Over the years, sharing the tragedy of losing someone close to them, Alistair had become less of an employee, and more of a friend, so much so that Pete considered him to be like a son.

 

And when Pete lost his first wife to the Cybermen, Alice had been his bereavement counsellor, and quickly became less of a colleague, and more of a friend. And when Rose was first stranded in his universe, Alice had counselled her, and he now considered her to be like a daughter to him as much as Rose was.

 

When Jackie released Alice from the hug, she gave them her cheekiest smile. “Who's the father?”

 

Alistair laughed with everyone else. “I’d give you three guesses, but I‘m afraid I might not be one of them,” he said with a grin.

 

Jackie patted his cheek. “Congratulations young man, I’m really pleased for ya.”

 

“Ah, the limo’s here,” Pete said. “And Alistair, pop down to the wine cellar when you’ve got a minute, and bring up some champagne, we’ll celebrate properly when we get back.”

 

In the limousine, John and Rose were quiet, trying not to give away the fact that they were in the wrong bodies. Rose-in-John was picking nervously at his nails, while John-in-Rose was pulling at her ear and rubbing her chin.

 

“You two are quiet tonight, is there somethin’ up?” Jackie asked.

 

“Nah,” Rose-in-John said. “It’s these celebrity functions; I’ve never been one for the limelight.”

 

“It’s the burden of havin’ a famous dad,” John-in-Rose said in support.

 

[“Mum’s gettin’ suspicious,”] Rose thought to John. [“Talk about Alice and Alistair to distract her.”]

 

[“Ooh, that’s devious.”] “I was just thinkin’ about Alice, isn’t it just brilliant Mum?” John-in-Rose said.

 

“Oh yes, it’s wonderful. After all the trauma they’ve had in their young lives, a baby will be just perfect for them, they’re such a lovely couple.” Jackie started talking about Alice’s pregnancy, and forgot about the odd behaviour of her daughter and son in law.

 

The limousine came to a halt outside the glitzy restaurant in the West End of London, and Pete stepped out, holding his hand out to help Jackie step out after him. She was wearing a black, low cut dress with lots of ‘bling’, which sparkled in the photographer's flashes.

 

Rose-in-John stepped out next, and held her hand out for her husband. [“Knees together…,”] she started to think to him.

 

[“I know, this is so embarrassing, being helped out of a limo by my wife.”] He stood up, and took his wife’s arm, smiling at the cameras. These pictures would be in society magazines and on the celebrity pages of the newspapers all over the country in the next few days and weeks.

 

They walked across the pavement, (except for John-in-Rose, who sashayed) and through the entrance of the restaurant. John-in-Rose was hanging onto his wife’s arm for dear life as he balanced on the high heeled shoes. In the foyer, they met various benefactors and celebrity patrons of the hospital as they drank cocktails and had nibbles. Eventually, they made their way to their table, and sat down with a relieved sigh, that wasn't as bad as they thought. They started to believe they could actually pull this off.

 


	16. I could never be your woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duncan and the team find out what happened to the aliens.  
> John and Rose have fun at the charity ball.

** Chapter 16 **

 

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air **

 

The camera outside the restaurant, filming with a telephoto lens through the glass, and the helmet cameras of the Torchwood agents, showed the suspects disappear into thin air.

 

“Damn! That was a teleport,” Stuart said from the side door. “Just like John and Rose said they used when they met that alien for the second time.”

 

“Yeah, it looks like we’re done here,” Duncan said. “Maybe satellite tracking can pick up something.”

 

[“With the suspects gone, all the agents can do is go back to London and hope that the sophisticated equipment can find a trace of them.”]

 

The team lowered their weapons and took off their helmets, before leaving the restaurant and walking along the short pier. Duncan thanked the manager and staff of the restaurant for their cooperation, and told them that it was safe to go back inside.

 

As they made their way back to Stuart Street, they were surprised to see a police officer coming towards them with a lopsided smile on his face.

 

“Go on…, how did you do it then?” he asked them in his Welsh accent.

 

“Er, do what?” Duncan said.

 

“Get that lot in the van without anyone seein’,” the officer said. “We heard a whistle blowin’ like, and then a ‘ding’, and then a commotion from inside.”

 

“Sorry…, has anyone got any idea what he’s on about?” Duncan asked his team.

 

As they walked onto Stuart Street, they could see a number of officers looking into the back of the van.

 

“Hah! You came tooled up for a bunch of pensioners?” one of the officers said with a grin.

 

“Eh?” Pete said, as the officers moved out of the way and saw the six suspects in the back of the van. “Bugger me.”

 

“Well, I’ll be dipped in shit!” Duncan exclaimed. “It must have been that weird gadget that John told me to put in a holding cell once we’d cornered the suspect.”

 

“You mean he knew they’d try to teleport out?” Danny asked.

 

“The sly old devil,” Clive said. “I knew he was clever, but that…, that’s just brilliant.”

 

“Right, so let’s get them back to Torchwood and into custody,” Duncan said. “Now, I could pull rank and select one of you to drive the van, but with a result like this, I think we should draw straws.”

 

“Oh cheers Dunc, that’s really good of you,” Pete said, and the rest of the team nodded and voiced their agreement.

 

“Er, excuse me,” a Welsh voice said behind them. “Gareth Jones, Torchwood Three, the guy in the restaurant. Why don’t I drive the van to London, you can give me a tour of Torchwood One, and then I can bring it back?”

 

“Hiya Gareth, thought it was you in there,” Pete said to his fellow countryman.

 

“Blimey, Pete. I didn’t know it was you in that helmet, how are you boyo?”

 

“Pretty good thanks.”

 

Duncan turned, walked towards the Cardiff agent, and held out his hand. “Hello Gareth. Duncan Prescott, Deputy Head of Special Operations. That’s a very generous offer, I can give you the tour, and then if you stay over in the guest quarters, you can join us down the local for a pint or two tonight. Then, you can come back tomorrow; how does that sound?”

 

Gareth shook his hand vigorously. “Deal.”

 

[“Duncan and Gareth speak to the police officers, explaining that they will be transporting the suspects to London, and returning their van in the morning,”] Tennant explained as the scene shows Gareth climbing into the cab of the van and switching on the electrics. “See you in a few hours,” he said with a cheery wave, and drove off.

 

Duncan looked up at the roof of the car park. “Right then you lot, let's go home.”

 

Rea filmed them walking across the road and ascending the stairs to the roof, and then called them back down as he ran up the stairs and filmed them again, coming up the stairs towards him. He then panned across the roof as they made their way to the airship and climbed on board. Once on board, the team removed their body armour, whilst Clive and Danny changed back into their black uniforms.

 

“If we put these back in the clothes bags, Gareth can take them back in the morning,” Danny said.

 

Rea was now in the cockpit, filming Captain Wallace as he approached Torchwood Tower. The external camera showed the Tower in the distance, with the familiar pyramid missing, whilst Will Hustler filmed the airship approaching from the roof. Back in the cockpit, Wallace was using computer screens to line up the airship to north, and positioning it over the large ‘A’ on the circular landing pad.

 

“Holding steady, fifty feet…, forty…, thirty…, wind shear to the south west at ten knots, twenty…, ten…, five…, contact.”

 

Hustler filmed the wheel clamps hinge up and lock the landing gear in place.

 

“The Hawk has landed,” Wallace said with humour. “Thank you for flying with Torchwood Air.”

 

With chuckles from the team, they made their way down in the ‘bullet’ lift to the Special Operations Unit on the third floor. Duncan went through to the supervisor’s office looking for Rose, only to find Chrissie at the desk.

 

“Where’d Rose go?” he asked her.

 

“Jack said they had a bit of a domestic crisis, they knocked off early to sort out the kids or something.”

 

“Oh right, I bet it's to do with that charity bash tonight, Rose probably hasn’t got a thing to wear,” Duncan said with a grin.

 

“Oi! It’s probably the other way around if truth be known,” Chrissie said in their defence (how right she was).

 

“It was just to let her know that a Cardiff agent is bringing in the suspects. We’ll be off shift by then, but I’m going to hang around and give him the tour, and then some of the watch are coming back to take him out on the town. Can you ask Housekeeping to set up a room for him?”

 

“Sure thing, I’ll hand it over to White Watch at 16:00.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

****

“Okay, and if we can have Mr. Kershaw on this side holding this end of the cheque,” the photographer said as he got the Chief Executive of the Republican Children's Hospital to hold the large, novelty cheque. “And Mr Tyler, if you could stand behind, shaking his hand over the top, with Mrs Tyler by your side…, and Mrs Smith, if you come in the front here, and just turn slightly...”

 

[“Yeah, to show my wife’s cleavage to the camera,”] John-in-Rose thought to his wife.

 

“And Dr. Smith, if you could stand next to you wife, and maybe put your arm around her waist? Oh, that’s lovely… everybody smile now.”

 

FLASH, click.

 

[“Hah! Now you know the price I have to pay for bein’ drop dead gorgeous,”] Rose-in-John thought back at him with a mental grin.

 

“And now if you can all come together, Mrs. Smith, at the front please with your husband. Mrs Tyler, next to your daughter, and Mr. Tyler next to your wife, with Mr. Kershaw on the end there. And if you can hold the cheque in front of you at waist height…”

 

FLASH, click.

 

“Wonderful, thank you all very much; I’ll let you get back to your dancing now,” the photographer said.

 

[“About that dancing?”] John-in-Rose asked. [“How do I do it in these heels without landing on your bum?”]

 

Rose-in-John tried to hide a giggle. [“Well, you can dance on tip-toe, keeping your heels off the floor, or my favourite, take yer shoes off.”]

 

[“I can do that can I? Oh that’s definitely the option for me,”] he said, reaching down and taking off the items of torture.

 

“Come on then wife…, or is it husband? Let’s show them how to cut a rug.” They went hand-in-hand onto the dance floor with the other guests and started to strut their stuff. When the music stopped, everyone applauded the band, and went back to their tables for a quick drink, before the next number started.

 

“I say old chap,” a slightly overweight, middle aged politician said to Rose-in-John. “Do you mind if I have this next dance with your wife?”

 

“Er, I suppose so…, is that alright with you Sweetheart?” she asked her husband.

 

John-in-Rose gave his wife ‘a look’, and then switched on his wife’s smile took the offered hand and stood up. “Delighted Minister.”

 

“Oh please Rose, call me Jeremy,” he said, without asking if he could call him Rose instead of Mrs. Smith. They went out onto the dance floor, and started to waltz. Rose-in-John found a celebrities wife and asked if she would care to dance.

 

After a few minutes of waltzing around the floor, Rose-in-John got an irate thought from her husband.

 

[“Call him Jeremy! I’ll call him something in a minute; he’s got his hand on your bum.”]

 

[“Oh yeah, you’ll get used to men takin’ liberties, you just have to know how to deal with it. Just follow my instructions…”]

 

John-in-Rose gently reached behind him, took the man’s hand, and brought it back to the small of his wife’s back. “Careful Jeremy, I wouldn’t want you to lose a finger.”

 

“Lose a finger?” he asked in confusion.

 

“Well, if my husband saw where your hand was, he might want to break your fingers,” John-in-Rose purred at him.

 

Jeremy looked around the dance floor, and saw John’s body, and on cue, Rose-in-John was looking daggers at him. “Oh, I, er, my hand slipped on your shiny dress,” he said in a panic.

 

[“Now for the finish,”] Rose thought at him.

 

John-in-Rose gave Jeremy a sexy smile. “I know, you should try wearing it, I feel like I’m going to slip out of it at any moment.”

 

Jeremy blushed at the thought of it and became all flustered. “Er, ah, um, yes, I could see how that would be a bit of a problem. Er, I’ve just remembered, I’ve got to see Mr Kershaw about funding. Thank you for the dance Mrs. Smith.”

 

[“Rose, that was amazing. I had no idea getting your own back could be so much fun,”] John thought in admiration.

 

[“Easy tiger, that’s just a taste of what I can do.”]

 

[“Rose, can I just say…, you-are-AWESOME.”]

 

The rest of the evening went without any further incident, and it was time for them to go.

 

“Well, I think that went well,” Pete said as they met up by the cloakroom. “That six million pounds will allow them to convert the wards into apartments where the sick children can be treated in a home environment with their family around them.”

 

John, Rose, and Jackie agreed with him as they got their coats and shawls before heading outside to the waiting limo. While they were travelling back to the mansion, there was some general chit chat about the evening, with John and Rose managing to keep up the pretence, and getting rather good at being the other person.

 

As the limo rolled up to the mansion, Pete used the ‘gate app’ on his smartphone to open the gates, and they proceeded down the drive to the front steps. The men..., well, one man (Pete), and one woman in a mans body (Rose), got out of the car first, and helped the women out…, well, lets not go into that.

 

John-in-Rose held on to his wife as they went up the steps to the front door, where Alistair was waiting for them.

 

“A good evening I hope?” he said as they got to the top of the steps.

 

“Yeah, very nice," Jackie said with a smile. “But ya didn’t have to open the door for us, you’re off duty now.”

 

“I know, it’s a force of habit, and anyway, good manners cost nothing,” he replied.

 

Jackie fondly patted his cheek as she went past, and the rest of the group greeted him in their usual fashion. Rose-in-John gave him a hug, and John-in-Rose fist bumped him with a wink.

 

Alice was in the living room, cradling Jason in her arms on the sofa.

 

“The kids have been good for you,” Rose-in-John said, remembering to say ‘you’ and not ‘ya’ as she usually did. It wasn’t a question; she knew they had been good, because both she and John could sense their children.

 

“They’ve been wonderful,” Alice said with a smile. “You must be so proud of them.”

 

“I’m afraid this one’s been spoilt this evening though,” Alistair said, sitting next to her. “She’s been fussing over him all night; I think she’s getting in some early practice.”

 

“Oh yes, did you get the bubbly out Son?” Pete asked.

 

“Yes, it’s in the kitchen, I’ll go and pour some glasses,” Alistair said, making an intention to stand.

 

“You’ll do no such thing,” Jackie said. “Pete, go an’ pour the champagne.”

 

Pete went off to pour the celebratory drinks, and everyone else sat down.

 

“How are you two?” Alice whispered to John and Rose. “Did it go alright?”

 

“Yeah, not as bad as I was expecting to be honest,” John-in-Rose said quietly, looking for confirmation from his wife in his body.

 

Rose-in-John nodded. “We quickly fell into our roles, and helped each other out to keep up the pretence.”

 

“What are you lot whisperin’ about?” Jackie asked, when she’d gotten comfortable and taken her heels off.

 

“Er, Alice was just askin’ how we were gettin’ on now with the celebrity thing,” John-in-Rose said, kicking off his heels as well as he spotted Jackie do it.

 

[“Ooh, good answer,”] Rose thought at him.

 

“Well, yer seemed to be enjoyin’ yerselves tonight, couldn’t get ‘em off the dance floor,” Jackie said.

 

Pete came through the door with a silver tray of champagne flutes. “That’s because when you’re dancing, you can’t be talking to people about celebrity things,” he said, as he handed out the drinks.

 

He held up his glass, and cleared his throat. “I propose a toast, to two young people who, over the years, have become part of this family. To Alistair, Alice, and their newly discovered unborn.”

 

They echoed the toast, and sipped their drinks, and fell into a very nice evening of conversation, until it was time to retire to bed. Alice had already put Jason into his romper, and she handed him over to John-in-Rose.

 

“Thanks for babysittin’ for us,” he said in Rose speak.

 

“You don’t have to thank us, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Eyulf and Juleshka are in their rooms in the TARDIS, fast asleep,” Alice told them.

 

“That box of yours still freaks me out,” Alistair said with a grin. “Y’know, in a good, mad kind of way.”

  
Rose-in-John laughed. “Yeah, we know exactly what you mean…, goodnight.”

 


	17. And Jack makes three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Raxacoricofallapatorians arrive at Torchwood, and John and Rose get an early morning call from Jack.

** Chapter 17 **

 

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air **

 

["When suspects are apprehended, they are brought to the secure holding facility in the basement of Torchwood Tower,"] Tennant explains, as a camera in a vehicle moves through the underground access area. The camera moved towards an Asian man in black overalls, standing in a loading bay.

 

["Ash Patel is the custody officer for Torchwood, and is responsible for the well being of all detainees during their stay."]

 

"We are expecting an arrival in the next half hour, and the van will reverse into the loading bay, and the big steel door here will slide across, sealing this area off from the rest of the building," Ash explained, as he slapped his hand on the bomb proof door. He then walked up a ramp into a concrete walled reception area which had several metal doors.

 

"Suspects are brought into this area, and put into one of these comfortable guest quarters." He opened a door to reveal a spacious room with comfortable furniture.

 

“We abide by the Shadow Proclamation Universal Bill of Rights for sentient life forms, which states that all beings, regardless of form, composition, and / or gender, are innocent until proven guilty, and as such are compulsory guests of the President of the Peoples Republic of Great Britain.”

 

Ash closed the door to the ‘apartment’ with a clang, and walked to the back wall of the reception area, where a polished steel door was recessed into the wall. He pressed a button on a panel next to the door, and it slid open to reveal another cell with a single, comfortable sofa.

 

“This is the secure lift to the interview room of the Legal Department on the twelfth floor.” Ash told the viewers. “We put the suspect in here, and press the button. The lift doesn’t move until the button in the interview room is pushed.”

 

The scene switches to another recessed steel door, in a featureless room containing a table and four chairs. [“The Legal Department of Torchwood spans several floors, and is one of the largest departments in the institute,”] Tennant said.

 

A woman in an expensive business suit, with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, and wearing round glasses, is leaning on the edge of the table. [“Lucinda Palmer is the head of Legal Services for Torchwood.”]

 

“In the bad old days of Torchwood, the Legal Department used to just make sure that we enforced the official secrets act, being under the royal charter of Queen Victoria. The Institute used to be outside the government, and beyond the law, and to be fair, it still is. However, Director Tyler made Torchwood accountable for its actions, and cleaned up its act. The Legal Department had to expand to deal not only with British law, but European, International, and Galactic law.”

 

She walked over to the recessed steel door, and turned to the camera once again. “When the Custody Officer informs us that a client is in the lift, we press this button, and bring them up for interview. A member of the legal team will act as an advocate for the client during interview, to assure that their rights are being upheld. I understand that the clients being brought in today are to be interviewed by Dr. Smith tomorrow…, he’s not know for sticking to the letter of the law, so I’ll probably sit in on those interviews.”

 

The scene cut to the entrance of the underground car park, where a white police van pulled up at the barrier.

 

[“Gareth Jones arrives in Canary Wharf with his special delivery. His approach is monitored by security cameras which scan the number plate and identify the vehicle,”] Tennant narrates.

 

Level with the driver's window was a display screen built into a plinth, on which a security officer’s face appeared. “Hello, can I help you?”

 

“Yes, Gareth Jones from Torchwood Three. I have a delivery of six suspects for Duncan Prescott.”

 

“Hello Gareth, we’ve been expecting you, could you hold up your ID badge please?” the officer said. Gareth reached into his pocket and held his badge up to the screen.

 

“You’ve made good time,” the officer said, making conversation as the equipment verified his identity.

 

“Yeah, the traffic was light, and being in a police vehicle helped, everybody moved over to let me past.”

 

“Hah! Nice one…, can you look into the optical scanner now please?” A tray extended from under the screen which contained a device that looked like a pair of goggles. Gareth picked up the gadget and held it over his eyes.

 

“Okay, that’s fine thank you Agent Jones, welcome to Torchwood One. Follow the green cat's eyes, and they’ll take you to the secure holding facility, where Agent Patel will meet you.”

 

“Thanks for that, you have a nice day now,” Gareth said.

 

“You to.”

 

Gareth drove through the underground labyrinth, until he saw a man wave him into the loading bay. He performed a three point turn, and reversed in until Agent Patel gave him the thumbs up. There was a low rumbling noise as the steel doors rolled across the entrance, and the camera faded the scene out.

 

In the loading bay, out of view of the cameras, Gareth rolled down the window and looked out to see what was happening.

 

“If you stay in the vehicle, we’ll just off load the suspects and get them securely bedded down for the night,” Ash said.

 

Gareth wound up the window and watched through the large wing mirror as security agents with stun rifles guided the aliens to the doors of the individual cells. They were made to remove the skins they were wearing, and he watched in fascinated horror as they reached up and unzipped their foreheads, which produced a flash of bright, blue light. The skins were put into evidence bags for transfer to the forensic labs, where the identity of the original owner would later be established.

 

He was surprised at how large the aliens were when they emerged from their disguises, and their faces were quite cute, with round cheeks and large black, baby like eyes. But Gareth knew that looks could be very deceptive when it came to aliens. You only had to look at their muscular arms, and the long sharp claws on their large hands to see what they might be capable of. One swipe of the arm, and those claws would disembowel anyone unfortunate enough to be in range.

 

He finally breathed a sigh of relief, when the final cell door clanged shut and locked. The steel door rolled back, and Ash knocked on the window.

 

“Park up over there, and I’ll take you up to Special Operations where Duncan is waiting for you.”

 

“Oh, thanks mate; I’m looking forward to that.”

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

It was the early hours of the morning, when John's phone started to play 'I feel like a woman', which was Jack's ring tone.

 

John-in-Rose's hand fumbled across the bedside table, in the general direction that the music was coming from, and the TARDIS raised the light level to a gentle glow.

 

"Hello Jack," he said sleepily.

 

"Hi Sweetheart," Jack's far too cheerful and awake voice said. "Oh, no wait, its John isn't it? Oh well, it's said now..., Sweetheart."

 

In his minds eye, he could see Jack's mischievous grin. "Jack, it's stupid o'clock in the morning, did you phone just to flirt with me, or was there something urgent you wanted to tell me?"

 

"There's always time for flirting, but I thought you'd like to know that the night shift maintenance crew have found the missing artefact."

 

John-in-Rose sat bolt upright, suddenly fully awake. He was wearing his blue and white striped pyjamas, which were a bit long in the leg and the arm on his wife’s body. Both he and Rose thought that if they were naked in bed together, it might feel awkward, like the kiss had earlier.

 

“Where is it?” he asked urgently.

 

“Six floors up, caught between a refrigeration unit and a bulkhead seal. They’ve got it isolated so that it can’t go anywhere.”

 

“Hmmph…, whassup?” Rose-in-John said, peeking her husband’s head from under the duvet. She had put her yellow onesie on John’s body, and the arms ended half way up his forearms, and the leg, half way up his calf.

 

“It’s Jack, they’ve found the transplanter.”

 

Rose-in-John leapt out of bed. “I’m off to the Time Rotor; tell ‘im we’re on the way.”

 

“Did you get that Jack?”

 

Jack was chuckling on the phone. “Yeah, I’m on the way there myself. See you there.”

 

John-in-Rose put on Rose’s fluffy slippers (simply because they fit her feet, and his own didn’t), and went through to the Console Room, where the Time Rotor was pumping up and down. He reached his long brown coat off the coat stand and shrugged it over his wife's shoulders, looking down at her hands, and realising that they were still inside the sleeves.

 

"Right, wait here with the kids while I'll go and catch the transplanter and bring it back," he said, rolling the sleeves back on the coat and pyjamas so that he could use her hands.

 

Ten minutes later, Rose was suddenly surrounded by a golden light before seeing John in front of her in Jack’s old Chula ship of all places.

 

“Whoops,” John said. “Oh, hello Love…, er, I’ll be right back. JACK, DON’T LET GO!” The golden light surrounded her again, and she was back in the Console Room on her own.

 

“I wonder what all that was about?” she asked herself. A few minutes later, she found out. She saw Jack burst through the TARDIS doors, followed by John in her body carrying a pink brick in a pair of tongs.

 

“Quick, bring it through to the workshop,” Jack said. “We can get it under control.”

 

Rose followed them, asking herself why Jack was taking the lead, and having a good idea at what the answer was. In the workshop, John lowered the transplanter into a transparent cylindrical container held by Jack, before he put the lid on and placed it on a receptacle on the worktop. A few indicator lights flashed and then stayed on.

 

"John?" Rose-in-John asked, looking at her own body clothed in oversized pyjamas and brown coat.

 

"Yeah," Jack said; her husband's manic smile evident on his lips.

 

"I knew it! You got zapped again, didn't you?" she said.

 

"Yeah," Jack-in-Rose said. "And can I just say..., great body Rose, just the right mix of muscle and curves."

 

"Okay, that's it! John, I want my body back right now, it's not a hire car that all and sundry can drive around in."

 

John-in-Jack tried to placate his wife, who had now had enough of being out of her body; she was starting to go out of her mind as well. “Okay Sweetheart, the TARDIS has got it under control now so that it can’t just ‘zap’ us when it wants to.”

 

He walked over to Jack-in-Rose, and put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Stand back Rose, I’m going to get back into your body, and then we can swap back our bodies.”

 

Rose-in-John backed away to the far side of the workshop, and watched nervously as John-in-Jack operated some controls on the panel next to the receptacle.

 

“Okay Jack, here we go.”

 

“Spoilsport,” Jack-in-Rose said with a grin as John-in-Jack flipped a switch. Rose-in-John saw them sway slightly and go weak at the knees before straightening up again.

 

“Well?” Rose asked.

 

“Very well thank you,” Jack said.

 

“Okay, Jack, you stand over where Rose is, and Rose, you come over here,” John-in-Rose said.

 

She walked over to her husband in her body, and put his arms around her neck. “Hurry up, cos’ I can feel a snogfest comin’ on.”

 

“Right, here we go then.” He flicked the switch again, and they were enveloped in a golden haze in their shared psyche. Without a word, Rose pulled him into a long, passionate kiss.

 

“Mmmm, God, I’ve missed you,” she mumbled through the kiss.

 

When the golden light faded, they were back in the workshop, back in their bodies, and their positions reversed. But they didn’t notice, they were totally immersed in the kiss. They heard Jack clear his throat.

 

“Er, I think I should be going now…, don’t want to be a gooseberry. I’ll see you both later.”

 

They slowly released their lips from the lock they were in and turned their heads to look at Jack, who had a large, toothy smile.

 

“Thanks Jack…, for everything,” Rose said. “I’ve got a promise to keep.”

 

“A promise?” John said questioningly, and Rose just gave him her tongue between her teeth smile.

 

He pointed his finger between them. “Now don’t get carried away you two, I want you bright eyed and bushy tailed for your shift later.” He saw the look on their faces when they looked at each other. “Ah, who am I kiddin’? I’ll see myself out.”

 

“Thanks for your help Jack, see you later,” John called after him, before scooping his wife up in his arms, and carrying her to their bedroom. He put her on her feet by the bed, caught sight of himself in the full length mirror, and started to laugh at the too small onesie that his body was squeezed into.

 

Rose reached up, and started slowly, and seductively, to pull down the zip. “Now, about that promise,” she purred.

 

“Eh?” he squeaked as she reached inside the onesie. “What promise?”

 

“I said that once I was back in here, you could fondle my body as much as you want”

 

John smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah, you did.” He reached down, and tugged the tie cord on the pyjama bottoms she was wearing, and the oversized trousers slid down her legs to the floor.

 

Rose peeled the onesie off his shoulders and down his torso, as he removed the long, brown coat, and started to unbutton the pyjama top. Before long, they were standing naked in front of each other, fondling their bodies with a new found awareness of how it felt for the other person. John gave the side of her neck a wet kiss and then gently blew across the damp patch of skin, causing a shiver to run down her spine.

 

They may share their thoughts on a regular basis, and know which buttons to press to get each other aroused, but sharing their bodies had taught them where all those buttons where, and how to press them more effectively. As Rose leaned back in his arms, she looked up and saw the rail of the four poster bed. She reached up and lifted herself up, wrapping her legs around her husband's waist, and gently lowering herself onto him.

 

“Well, Jack said I had the right mix of muscle and curves,” she grinned as she started to do pull-ups on his erection.

 

He gripped her buttocks to support her weight, and started to move with her, eliciting a groan and a gasp from her.

 

“You know technically this isn’t fondling,” he breathed in her ear.

  
She let out a gasp. “I don’t care, just shut up, and shag me.” She let go of the rail and fell back onto the bed, pulling him with her as she went, running her fingers through his oh-so-great hair and pulling him into a fantastic snog.


	18. Blon Fel Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter where Rose reminisces, John interviews, and David Tennant rounds up the episode of 'Torchwood, the documentary'.  
> A quick kudos to Douglas Adams and the Teasers from Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. (I just couldn't let an idea like that go to waste)

** Chapter 18 **

 

 

 

** Torchwood - On Air **

****

 

Rose stood in front of Blue Watch with a strong cup of coffee in her hand, looking over the briefing notes on her tablet PC. It was fair to say that she hadn’t had much sleep last night, what with one thing and another.

 

“Okay, settle down team… First of all, the Director would like to pass on his congratulations to Duncan and his team for a successful, low mess capture of the suspects yesterday. Well done guys.” There were cheers and applause from the watch.

 

“Stuart, you’ll be on Despatch today, so Pete, its your turn for competency trainin’,” Rose said, and then couldn’t suppress a yawn. “Ooh, sorry…, bit of a late night last night.”

 

Some of the lads whistled and laughed, whilst Gwen and Julia gave her knowing looks.

 

“Alright, get yer minds out of the gutter, it’s not what yer thinkin’... Well, not all of it anyway,” she said with a smile. “I was here with John and Jack, trackin’ down an artefact that had decided to go walkabout in the ventilation system.”

 

“Is that a euphemism for somethin’?” Jake asked cheekily.

 

“Button it Peg,” she said light heartedly. “Right, item one; last night, White Watch was called to a family where their adopted son had started acting strangely. They had taken him to hospital thinkin’ he may have had an infection, and the hospital called us. The agents that went think he may be an orphaned off-worlder that was taken into care. Gwen and Craig, I want you to take Alice and interview him and the family, see if we can offer any help or support,” Rose said, before having a mouthful of coffee.

 

[“The Torchwood Institute not only investigates aliens and unusual phenomena, but also offer help and support to lost, stranded or abandoned visitors to our world,”] Tennant explained over the briefing.

 

“Item two…” Rose continued the briefing in the usual format, issuing the tasks to the teams.

 

 

** Torchwood - In Production. **

****

 

After the briefing, Rose went over to Matt Jackson, one of the Camera Directors. “Sorry about the yawnin’ back there, it was the artefact brought back from Norwich, it decided to run off and hide in the ventilation system. We’d had Maintenance looking for it all day, and they found it in the early hours.”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry we missed that one, that would have been some good footage for the story,” Matt said.

 

‘No it wouldn’t,’ Rose thought to herself.

 

“It was quite dull really, just a case of getting it out of the duct and switchin’ it off,” she lied. “John will do an interview later to explain what the artefact is.”

 

“Oh that’s good; we’ll be able to do a round up on that story.”

 

“Yeah, we’ll be doing interviews this morning of the suspects brought in yesterday, so we’ll update you on that at the same time.”

 

“That’ll be great Rose, see you later,” Matt said, and Rose headed for her office.

 

After grabbing another mug of coffee from the Standby Room, she sat in her office, and read through the mission log of the capture of the Raxacoricofallapatorians. She was stunned that they were in the same restaurant that the Doctor had taken Margaret the Slitheen to in the old universe, while they had waited for the TARDIS to recharge. She had a wistful smile on her lips as she remembered her time in Cardiff.

 

She had invited Mickey to join them on the pretence that she needed her passport, but the real reason was to try and tell him in as gentle way as possible that they were over, and that she was staying with the Doctor. She remembered Jack found it amusing, because he knew even then that she and the Doctor were in love, even if they didn’t.

 

While the Doctor had taken Margaret to the restaurant, she and Mickey had walked in Roald Dahl Plass, talking about their relationship. Mickey was still keen to make a go of it with her, which made it harder to tell him how she felt. In a way, she was grateful to Margaret for opening the rift, because it meant that she had to run back to the TARDIS to find the Doctor and save the world. When it was all over, Mickey was gone, and she’d missed the opportunity to tell him the truth and say goodbye.

 

[“Is that melancholy I detect?”] John thought in her head.

 

[“Oh, hi Love…, I was just rememberin’ the old days, when we stopped over in Cardiff that time.”]

 

[“Oh yeah, happy days,”] he thought back cheerfully.

 

[“Happy days? Only you could call the day an alien opened the rift an’ tried to destroy the Earth, happy,”] she thought back with a smile. [“Talking of which, you are not goin’ to believe where they caught them yesterday...”]

 

 

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

 

 

John and Rose sat at the desk in the featureless interview room, with Lucinda Palmer sitting to the side. They each had a tablet PC with the charges listed, and a historical account of what had occurred. Two security agents with stun guns, stood either side of the lift doors as they waited for the lift to arrive. When it arrived with a ‘ding’, the doors opened and they saw a large, green alien reclining on the sofa. It slowly looked over at John, Rose, and Lucinda, as though it was already bored with the proceedings before they had even started.

 

“Would you care to join us?” Lucinda asked the alien. “My name is Lucinda Palmer; I will act as your legal advisor. This is Doctor John Smith, and Rose Smith, they will be conducting the interview.”

 

The alien reluctantly stood and sauntered over to the desk, and flopped down in the remaining chair. “This is a waste of time, I do not recognise your authority to question me, I have done nothing wrong.”

 

Lucinda was about to elaborate on the points of law, but John beat her to it. “Well, if you’re sure…, only we’ve been in contact with the authorities on Raxacoricofallapatorius, and they were only too keen for us to extradite you back home where they could carry out the sentence, and then have a trial to make sure the sentence was severe enough, although death is quite severe to start with.”

 

“Doctor Smith,” Lucinda said, trying to reign him in and get back to the law.

 

“I wonder what could be a fate worse than death? A weekend of Balhoon opera maybe?”

 

The alien gulped. “You know where I am from?” it asked, now nervous, rather than bored.

 

“Oh yes, and we know that the family businesses usually end up with some inhabited planet suffering. So, I’ll give your people a call and ask them to come and collect you shall I?”

 

“No, wait!” the alien said. “I…, I haven’t done anything, I found that skin…”

 

“I would stop there if I were you,” Lucinda said. “You are still under caution, and this interview is being recorded. Its in your best interest if you do not volunteer any information, just answer the questions put to you. Your rights are guaranteed under article fifty two of the Shadow Proclamation. ”

 

The alien blinked its large black eyes at Lucinda and nodded.

 

John grinned. “Brilliant, first question, who are you?”

 

“Blon. I am Blon Fel Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen,” the alien said quietly.

 

“John! Isn’t that…”

 

“Yeah, Margaret from Cardiff, well, this world's version of her at least.”

 

“What are the chances?” Rose asked in a hushed voice.

 

“Well, pretty high, considering this is a parallel world.”

 

“Is something wrong?” Lucinda asked, wondering what the conversation was about.

 

“No, no, it’s just that we’ve met someone like her before. So, back to the interview, the other five suspects, siblings of yours?” John asked.

 

“Yes, my brothers and sisters.”

 

“And the skins you were wearing, you didn’t just find them lying around, did you?” Rose asked.

 

“We could have done,” Blon said defensively.

 

“Oh what, a fanatical cult had a mass suicide did it?” John said sarcastically.

 

“Doctor Smith, the facts please,” Lucinda reminded him.

 

“Okay, we’ll let forensics sort that one out, it should be fairly simple to prove. Now, for the big question, why are you here, what are you up to?”

 

** Torchwood - On Air **

 

 

The television showed scenes from the episode, as David Tennant started to do a roundup. The first scene showed the Weevil caught by Andre and Alice, being loaded into the white police van by members of the animal care team, with Gareth at the wheel.

 

[“The Weevil that was caught in Milton Keynes, was taken to Cardiff for repatriation by way of a device called a rift manipulator. We’d like to say ‘never to be seen again’, but the scientists at Torchwood tell us it may be back.”]

 

The next scene, showed John in his laboratory / workshop holding up the metallic pink brick. “This, is a practical joke that causes all kinds of mischief, and it has a built in detection avoidance circuit, which means it ran off and hid in the buildings ventilation system. It’s able to swap a person's consciousness from one body to another, which contravenes a number of galactic bylaws.”

 

Clips of Julia and Jake in Norfolk were shown as Tennant explained the developments. [“The alien ‘chavs’ that kidnapped the holiday makers, drew the crop circle, and dropped the device, are known collectively as Teasers. Dr. Smith was able to analyse the device and trace the owner and his group of friends with the help of the Shadow Proclamation.”]

 

There was now a group of young aliens, with stern looking parents behind them. [“They were made to apologise and pay compensation to the victims of the kidnapping prank, as well as being fined for failure to register their arrival on a level five planet, and were made to complete one hundred hours of community service…, oh, and face the wrath of their parents.”]

 

A clip of the Slitheen family being loaded into a secure vehicle was shown next. [“The aliens that were apprehended in Cardiff after a story appeared in a magazine were questioned under caution and enough evidence found for them to be committed for trial to the Galactic Criminal Court. Strangely enough, they declined to be tried on their home planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius, where they would have been summarily executed, and then a trial held to see if the punishment was delivered in accordance with their law.”]

 

Finally, there was a clip of a limestone quarry in Derbyshire. [“The Special Operations Unit was never called to the quarry in Derbyshire, where a metallic object had been found. It was determined to be harmless, and a team of geologists and archaeologists from the University of Derby went to investigate,”] Tennant explained.

 

University professors could be seen investigating the metal object which was embedded in the rock. [“Torchwood were later contacted, and Dr. Smith informed them that they were correct in thinking that the object had been present when the sediment was originally laid down sixty six million years ago at the end of the Mesozoic Era. He theorised that it was part of the star ship that broke up in the atmosphere, before the engineering section hit Chicxulub on the Yucatan coast, and the antimatter power supply exploded.”]

 

The dramatic music started playing, and random clips of agents and vehicles were shown. [“Torchwood: outside the government, beyond the police. Join us next time, as we follow the men and women who work with alien friends to advance our civilisation, and defend the Earth from the threat of invasion.”]

 

  
  
** The End **


End file.
